


Goggles and the Tears

by Machiner6



Category: BioShock Infinite, Half-Life, Marathon - Fandom, SOMA - Fandom, System Shock 2
Genre: AI, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 18:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 41
Words: 117,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5880970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Machiner6/pseuds/Machiner6
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a fan crossover between several entries in the “Shock” timeline of games, and other games as well. (System Shock, Bioshock Infinite, Half-Life 2 – starring Ross Scott’s caricature of Gordon Freeman, from the web series Freeman’s Mind; and Marathon.) Several months have been spent developing this massive piece of work, and after initial submission to DeviantArt, it is now here for a more sophisticated crowd to read.<br/>Many similarities between games have prompted me to create this, and when you read, you'll see where they go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where he left off...

**Author's Note:**

> If you have not played the games mentioned above within the listed fandoms, do not read this fanfiction until you have. Spoilers are in abundance for many of these, and all of them require context to fully understand. There are wikis available, but a better experience would be to play these games yourself.

“Join me, human, and-and-and we can rule...and we can rule, together!!”

“Nah.”

With that one phrase, the hard-bitten cyborg super-soldier declined a typical offer of ultimate power from a being who wanted to play god, and as if to add, “Screw you” to that line, he pulled out his shotgun and blasted SHODAN in the face.

The cybernetic wannabe deity screamed in a somewhat over-the-top fashion while her pocket universe of cyberspace collapsed around both of them.

When he came to, the soldier found himself back on the bridge of the Rickenbacker. He looked about after getting back on his feet, and noticed not only that the bridge’s computers were back online, and that the portal into cyberspace was indeed closed for good, but now that the Many’s dead tissue was slowly decaying. Just to be safe, he made a note to look for, if not synthesize some more canisters of Toxin A.

In the meantime, he stepped behind the console that once belonged to Captain Diego. He felt really bad now for leaving the man to die in the lower decks, but with that overloaded meson coil and Diego cutting out his parasite, it really wasn’t Goggles’ fault. Nonetheless, he located a comms panel and hit the transmit key.

“This is Soldier G65434-2, the Many and SHODAN have been purged from both ships. Any personnel in range, please respond, over.”

\-----

“Record log: Tommy Suarez, 13 July, ’14. We’ve just received a hailing from a crewmember on board the Von Braun. They’ve managed to regain control of the ship. We’re going to turn around and head back. I’m a little concerned about Rebecca. She’s been acting strangely since we’ve come on board. She’s asleep now. Maybe when we get back to the Von Braun, we can sort this whole mess out.”

Tommy glanced at the only cryo pod that was occupied in the escape shuttle. Something seemed very, very wrong with his girlfriend. Just before he’d put her in two hours ago, he’d noticed a strange implant attached to her right cheek. To be on the safe side, he forcibly removed it, after scolding her that it’s not right to use something you don’t know about, like drugs. Being yelled at by your lover would convince anyone.

Up to that point, she’d been stumbling about and saying some things that seemed so unlike Rebecca Siddons, almost as if she didn’t recognize Tommy at all. When that piece of tech was taken out, though, he could see, in her eyes, that somehow she’d turned back to normal…at least he hoped. The man sat back in the chair and cautiously locked the pod’s rearview camera onto the Von Braun’s docking bay. They’d be there in no time.

\-----

Goggles received confirmation that Tommy’s escape pod would dock on the Von Braun’s command deck, seeing as the pod bay in the Rickenbacker was still clogged with dead tissue from the Many’s body. Which meant that he’d have to haul serious ass to get back to that ship. Luckily for him, Goggles managed to hack the bridge elevator to take him straight to deck 1 of the Rickenbacker. When he’d first used them, they were locked down to one floor each for some strange reason.

Navigating the cramped red-lit tunnels of this warship, he thought to himself, “Geez, I don’t remember this ship being so submarine-like in design when I signed up! How would anyone be able to find their way around with no automap? I would take the Von Braun any day over this bullshit!”

Passing a few dead hybrids and destroyed turrets he’d shot while coming through here the first time, Goggles emerged from the entrance to the ship’s engine nacelles and from there the storage bay and long ladder that led back to the ship’s umbilical. As Goggles rode down the descending grav-shaft, he overheard the familiar voice of XERXES. Considering SHODAN was no longer around and that the Many were gone, he hoped that that computer was back to normal like he should’ve been in the first place. Goggles made a note to himself NOT to hack this thing anytime soon.

“This is XERXES. Escape pod C-328-7 entering bay 3.”

Approaching an auxiliary terminal, he tapped a button and asked, “Computer, status report.”

“Unknown biomass attached to ship exterior, manual inspection required. Internal systems are operational and fully functional at this time. Please report any internal anomalies to your direct superior.”

Goggles then took off in a sprint to find the Escape pod bay. He made it to the last docking bay in the area, hearing alarms wailing as Tommy’s pod backed up to the boarding hatch.

As the pressurized door hissed open, Tommy jumped out and saw the armored cyber-marine waiting for him. He didn’t expect the very man who saved the human race from total destruction to have such a weird-looking cyber rig, especially with competently emotionless camera lenses in place of his eyes. But to show politeness, Mr. Suarez walked up and shook the soldier’s hand.

“Well, am I glad to see you...what’s your name, sir?”

“I can’t remember. That stupid AI wiped my memory while I was in stasis getting this stuff grafted to me. But now that you mention it, I haven’t been able to get this nickname out of my head for the past few hours: Goggles. I guess you could call me that.”

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, but I imagine we’re both a little on edge after what happened,” Tommy nodded solemnly.

“Right. There’s gotta be someone on board other than us that can sort this whole mess out. Marie Delacroix said she was dead, but I want to be absolutely sure.”

He fished out his PDA and called up his last email from Ms. Delacroix. “...I would come with you, but I am trapped in Cargo Bay A. Come and find me as soon as possible!”

“I know where she is. Follow me,” Goggles coldly stated while brandishing his laser pistol. He noticed that his arsenal was pretty full, and asked Tommy to carry his shotgun and shells. He smiled and accepted the weapon, but stopped when he remembered something in the pod. “Hang on, someone else is here.”

Tommy stepped back into the pod and pocketed the weird-looking implant, then tapped in a code on Rebecca’s pod to wake her up. After a hiss and some beeping tones, the pod lifted its glass shroud open. Rebecca climbed out and wobbled about a little from hibernation sickness. Tommy held her close and whispered in her ear, “Hey, Rebecca. We’re back. Everything’s okay now, those aliens and SHODAN are gone.” He paused as Rebecca looked him in the eye, and that woman suddenly burst into tears and hugged him closely. Goggles noticed this, thinking back towards all the audio logs he read about their relationship and just how far their love for each other went. But even then, Goggles couldn’t help but feel that the worst was yet to come. A strange thought, considering that he had just blasted The Many and SHODAN to bits in just a few hours.

He called, “Hey, I hate to interrupt, but we need to find Marie Delacroix. She’s our last hope at figuring out what’s truly going on. Something’s telling me that we’re not out of the woods yet.”

Tommy glanced at him and nodded, “Right.”

The couple stood back and walked towards the soldier, who took point in leading them to the shuttle bay on the other end of the command deck. As they walked quickly, Tommy asked, “So what DID happen while we were outside in space?”

“You’d never believe it. I’m not sure if this cybernetic rig recorded what I’d seen on video, but I’ve practically been to hell and back. First up, you know that AI from Citadel station called SHODAN?”

“No, who’s that?” Rebecca asked.

“It’s a long story, but it turns out I’d been working for her the whole time. She guided me into destroying those...um, the Many, as those hybrids said. I pulled the job off all right, but then she turned around and backstabbed me when I was just feeling relief.”

“Frankly, I’m not surprised. That--”

“Hang on, I hear something,” Goggles stopped to glance around a corner just before reaching the lobby. He heard the scratchy monotone of a security robot examining the environment. But strangely, it didn’t seem to notice anyone’s presence. Then he remembered that the Many had control of XERXES up until they were killed, so now that the AI was back to normal, the robots wouldn’t be malfunctioning anymore…at least he hoped.

“All clear, fellas. Let’s move!”

 

\-----

 

They rounded the corner into the officer’s area corridor, and Goggles whistled, “It’s really strange, last time I came through here, an annelid or robot would come bursting from around every freaking corner and I had to blow holes into every one of them. But now...they’re gone. No more threats. I don’t know why, but something feels off about that.”

Rebecca agreed, “I know what you mean. I would’ve loved to have seen this ship in its heyday, and if Delacroix had finished working out all the bugs first. Why, oh why did those bastards go to Tau Ceti V?”

“Yeah, Captain Diego had every right to be suspicious. He should’ve gotten a medal for not letting the Many take him. Poor guy, I really wanted to work with him,” Goggles grumbled. He started to raise his voice, but then continued with his previous conversation, “Now as I was saying, um...SHODAN said something about using the Von Braun’s faster-than-light drive to make herself into a goddess. Delacroix mentioned that it works by altering reality around the ship. When I took SHODAN out, this...portal into cyberspace or some shit like that closed and I ended up back on the Rickenbacker.”

The trio hopped into the tram car that escorted them back to the main entrance, and Tommy gasped as Goggles hit the throttle button, “Whoa, an AI could do THAT? Cyberspace what? Um… What happened next?”

“It was freaky, um…this actually happened earlier: After I killed the Many and made it back to the Rickenbacker, I think I wandered into...well, a simulation of Citadel Station. I’d watched some holo-vids about the Hacker’s assault on that place, a few years back. But here’s what really ticked me off.”

“Yes, I’m listening?” Rebecca asked with curiosity.

“SHODAN had been bragging of her so-called ‘godhood’ and looking at humans as insects. First she left me for dead, then asked me to ‘join her and rule together’ because she wanted to give me incredible power and better cybernetics. After all I’d been through doing her dirty work? Screw that! I need a new posting, probably a lot of leave time. If this ship wasn’t so filthy, I could kick back on the Rec deck for a while. Yeah, some protocol droids bringing me food, a nice time at the club...well, there aren’t enough ladies on this ship, but still.”

“Oh, that sounds nice. I could use a cold one right now myself. In fact,” Tommy paused as the tram stopped. He stepped over to one of the replicators, popped in a few nanites, and grabbed a bottle of champagne. Taking a swig, he exhaled with great relief and asked, “Hey, Goggles, you want some of this?”

“No thanks, I don’t like alcohol; tastes awful and hurts my psionics.” But he did insert some nanites to pick up a bottle of distilled water.

“Suit yourself, soldier. Oh, by the way,” Tommy added between sips of his bottle o’ bubbly, he fished out that weird implant and handed it to Goggles.

“What’s this?”

Rebecca pointed out, “I found that...implant among a stash of supplies.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know...hmmm...I think it was in a computer room on Ops. Don’t ask me which one, every room looks the same on this ship.”

Tommy hiccupped, “Rebecca found me on the Command deck, and she was wearing that gadget on her face. Every now and then I thought her voice sounded different and her hair looked like she’d touched a live wire. I took it out just before we launched.”

“I don’t know what happened, I swear! I can’t remember! All I knew was, ‘go with Tommy, get out of the ship, fight off those monsters’, and that’s it.”

“Hmmmm...” Goggles pondered with concern, his eyebrows low and his mouth as thin as a staple, “If it’s anything the rest of this hellhole, it’s a good thing your boyfriend took it off. We’d better get someone to analyze it.”

Then he walked around the corner and called, “I think the cargo bay’s down this hall to the right. But it’s a long ways, so we’d better hurry!”

Tommy finished his champagne and chucked the bottle into the trash can, and promptly joined the cyborg military officer. Goggles was tempted to use a speed booster, but seeing as the couple didn’t have any, he didn’t. He paused briefly to recharge all his powered gadgets at a power station, then continued onwards towards the main elevator and the shuttle bay door.

Their shoes screeched into the lobby, and the soldier directed his rescues towards a large flight of stairs leading upwards into the shuttle bay. About halfway up, Rebecca was nearly out of breath, but the soldier offered her a sip of his water. He made sure to wipe the top with a clean tissue first, but that action made him remember just how filthy he was now and he cried, “Oh God, I’m as dirty as all hell! I need a shower big time!”

“What did you do, sir? Did one of those hybrids puke on your or something?” Tommy offhandedly queried.

“No, worse than that. I forgot to mention that part of my ‘mission’ involved going INSIDE the body of the Many itself. That’s the source of all this dead tissue crap around the ship.”

“Ugh, I don’t even want to know!” Rebecca cringed.

“Remind me when we head down to deck 5; I need to ask someone to give me a fresh apartment with some new clothes.”

“Good idea.”

As they reached the top of the stairs, some robots were pacing back and forth. Some of them were protocol droids that now didn’t look like happy kamikazes, and a lumbering maintenance robot. In a moment of clarity, Goggles found the comm panel and paged XERXES, “Computer, I need to get into Cargo Bay A. Can you help?”

“Affirmative, sir; maintenance will arrive shortly. Please stand by,” XERXES replied in his ever-present calm monotone.

The maintenance robot pinged a couple of times, buzzed, “Critical damage to bulkhead detected, manual override in progress,” Then deployed a plasma cutter from one of its arms and slowly proceeded to cut through the outer edge of the heavily battered blast door.

Goggles was practically chewing his fingernails in anticipation over what felt like 3 minutes of a slow but precise cutting process. Then, with a low metallic groan, the doors gave way and fell inwards. He prayed that Ms. Delacroix wasn’t right in front of them.

Then the soldier and his companions rushed into the massive crate-laden chamber. Goggles and Tommy pulled out their guns and swept out the area for any hostiles left behind, but all they saw were a couple of dead cyborg assassins and 3 inactive turrets. Still scared about not making it, Goggles handed his laser rapier to Rebecca and ordered the couple, “You two cover my 3 and 9 o’clock, I’ll take point.”

“You got it, sir,” Tommy affirmed.

The soldier’s robotic shoes clanked on the steel floor, and he didn’t stop glancing up and down at the piles upon piles of crates. He called, “Hello? Marie Delacroix, can you hear me?”

No answer. Tommy tried himself, “Hey, Marie, where are you? We’ve come to get you out!”

Silence followed, but over in a dark corner where the upper catwalk shrouded a large pile of boxes, Rebecca heard the sound of someone coughing. The trio rushed over quickly, and to everyone’s surprise, a thin pale woman in a purple jumpsuit with black hair in a ponytail was curled up, bleeding heavily on the floor. She looked right at Goggles and wheezed, “You...How did you get here?”

“It’s okay, SHODAN and the Many are gone. Here, patch yourself up with this,” Goggles explained while grabbing a medical kit from his pack. Rebecca quipped to her boyfriend, “How much stuff does he carry in that backpack?”

Goggles knew that this was Ms. Delacroix by the tag on her outfit, and as she started the nanite-based healing process the kit utilized, he cleared away some of the boxes so she could see him more clearly. Marie looked at him sternly and asked with distrust in her voice, “Are you sure you did all that? Is XERXES back under control?”

“We found a bunch of robots along the way, and not one of them wanted to shoot us. Is that enough proof?” Rebecca snapped.

After the kit restored all her vital signs and other such life functions, Marie climbed out of her makeshift fort of crates and gloomily declared, “You may have saved me from dying just now, but we’re not safe yet. SHODAN still has left her mark on the space around this ship. No one’s going anywhere until we get that resolved.”

“What do you mean ‘left her mark’, Ms. Delacroix? I know that she was using the drive to alter reality to her purposes, but...oh god...what DID she do?”

Marie eyed them all with a dark look in her eyes, then opened her jacket, removed a small tablet computer, tapped a few buttons, and showed what seemed to be an exterior camera view of the Von Braun. Everyone crowded around to see the video on screen, and they all felt chills down their spines.

Tommy gasped, “What is that?”

“It looks like...some kind of hole. Like that portal I stepped into just after I destroyed the Many’s brain,” Goggles spoke slowly.

“It’s more than just a hole. Gentlemen, SHODAN has torn the very fabric of space-time in several spaces around the ship. If we don’t fix those soon, who knows what’ll happen?”


	2. They All Come Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now we see just what the damage to space-time is, and a possible connection between Bioshock Infinite and System Shock in very, very serious ways.

Location: Finkton, Columbia. 15,000 feet over New York City. Year 1912.

“Booker, do you hear that?”

“What?”

“I hear something coming from that tear. Look!”

Booker DeWitt checked his surroundings for any potential enemies, but in this area of Finkton, there were none for the time being. Elizabeth grabbed hold of the tear, reached out and pulled it just wide enough to see that this tear, unlike many of the others, didn’t show just a freight hook or a view into Paris. Here, it seemed that they were looking at the surface of some kind of giant ship in a black void filled with stars.

“I don’t know if we should go through. Comstock might see us. And I for one need to rest, ugh…” Booker gagged in how he’d made the mistake of looting a wastebasket with perfectly good food inside. Why he had even the thought to do that was beyond his own reckoning.

“It can’t be any worse, it sounds quiet in there. And I think I can bring us back through this one if we want.”

“Really? You sure?”

“It doesn’t feel as large-scale as that last one I opened.”

“Okay. Do it,” Booker grunted as he started to hear the screams of angry Vox Populi troops. Before he thought they were allied with Booker and Elizabeth, but once she opened that tear back in the Good Time Club, it was another situation entirely. He couldn’t trust anyone but that girl now. Like he said when he downed that first bottle of Devil’s Kiss, “Well, you only live once.”

When Elizabeth pulled even harder to allow her and Booker to step through, a flash of light occurred, and once it cleared, they were now standing in a dark metal room with doors on all sides and a tall column in the center with a strange blue face projected onto it. It spoke, “This is XERXES. Intruders detected in Operations Deck, Sector B.”

\-----

Location: Research Vessel Borealis, uncharted area of Northern Greenland, 500 miles east of abandoned “North-Western Lead and Iron Mine and Shelter Research Station.” Year 203X

“Gordon!”

“Huh?”

“Look over here, I think with whatever portal technology that Aperture company had rigged up here, one of their ‘tests’ apparently has a portal that leads somewhere.”

The buff one-man army in orange powered armor stared intently at a strange crack in one reinforced wall with what seemed to be a gun locked down to a podium and pointed at that hole, and hooked to small mechanical clamps that would move the dual triggers on it.

“Do you think we should go through?”

“I don’t know. Looks like it opens into outer space, unless this is Xen, but I doubt it because that looks more like a manmade spaceship. If that goes where I think it goes, we’re going to need helmets and oxygen tanks. And Alyx, tell Barney that along with that beer, he owes me a grappling hook and the missing helmet for this suit, okay? And I want a motorized grappling gun like Batman’s, not like a simple rope and anchor type.”

“All right, all right, Gordon. We’ll do that. Now where would an oxygen tank be down here?”

The two fighters left one of the ship’s experimental test chambers and searched a higher deck’s storage bay for scuba gear they could wear. Not as useful as a real spacesuit, but it would have to do for now. Alyx and Gordon strapped the tanks to their backs, stuck the breather units in their mouths, pulled on their goggles, and carefully waded into the glowing tear in space-time. Neither of them were prepared for the sudden lack of atmospheric pressure, the sharp drop to zero gravity, or how little time they had to find some way into the ship. Fortunately, Gordon sighted a small hatch in the hull, reached out and managed to grab a handle near it. A little scared as to what would happen should they fail, Gordon rapidly searched about for a way to open the hatch. His hand brushed against a small switch, which he then pulled with a sharp “clack”. The airlock hissed open in an unusually quick way, and both Gordon and Alyx dived in before Gordon slammed on the lock switch to pressurize the chamber. The duo felt immense relief as air returned to their lungs and around them. The inner door then pneumatically opened.

A security camera behind the door spotted them, emitted a loud beep and a computerized male voice blared over the P.A., “This is XERXES. Intruders detected in Port airlock C, Sector A of Hydroponics. Security forces have been alerted to your presence.”

\-----

Location: UESC Marathon, 23,339,865 kilometers from Tau Ceti IV. Year 2785

“Listen up, my friend. There’s been a change in plans. I’ve just received info from a technician on board that there’s some kind of anomaly inside this ship. I’m going to teleport you as close as I can to it, but be prepared: The Pfhor have a tight grip on that area, so do what you can to flush them out. I’ll give you the details when you arrive.”

Security guard Mjolnir 54 teleported away from the glowing green terminal he’d been cautiously reading on board the UESC Marathon.

True to his word, once the cyborg guard landed at the destination on one of the ship’s upper decks, the room was swarming with multicolored insectoid creatures carrying glowing energy staffs and guns similar to his own. But he wasted no seconds in blasting the Pfhor aliens to bloody chunks and painting the walls greenish-yellow with their blood. Once the coast seemed clear, he whipped around and logged onto another green-lit terminal ready to read the AI Durandal’s latest piece of news.

“Looks like things are going to be quite interesting for the both of us. Three doors down, there’s an experimental laboratory with the anomaly I mentioned inside. Technician Michael Bronson reported it as a space time portal, and I couldn’t help but gain great interest in such a thing. We’re going to take a brief detour and explore this area, but I need to accompany you on this trip. Go to computer room G13 on this deck, and insert a jump drive so that I can download a small copy of myself to observe from within your helmet’s optic sensors. You should have a drive on your person of about 32 Exabytes. That should more than suffice to hold me. Good luck, maybe once you’ve downloaded me, you’ll get to hear me talk. I’ve always wanted to utilize a vocal processor. Who knows?”

From how this rampant AI had been speaking to him for a matter of days on board this ship, Mjolnir 54 wasn’t sure he wanted to hear Durandal speak, but he too was interested in that ‘space-time portal’. Checking his automap, he noticed that computer room G13 was just up a flight of stairs from the lab, so he rushed up to that room, plugged in his flash drive, and on the nearby terminal, Durandal displayed a new statement, “Good. This secondary copy of myself should be able to relay all its info back to its master drive here. But beware: The Pfhor troops don’t notice it now but in 45 minutes time they will converge on this deck and break through the bulkheads in haste to reach the higher decks. I’ll try to keep this area locked down, but make sure to be back here in less than 45 minutes. If they discover this space-time portal, who knows what could happen to whatever’s on the other side?”

Mjolnir 54 plugged the drive into a port on his right gauntlet, and within a few seconds, the familiar green logo of the Marathon showed up in a small section of his heads-up display. Currently, Durandal had nothing to say, which was a slight relief. The guard then returned to the lower floor, stepped through the tear and, in mere seconds, he stood now in a steel corridor lined with glass tubes and computer banks, in front of a large flat-screen display showing the logo of the Tri-Optimum Corporation, and an announcement reading “Welcome to the UNN Von Braun. You are currently in Cryo Recovery sector B of MedSci, Deck 2.”

 

\-----

Location: UNN Von Braun, 6,432 kilometers from Tau Ceti V. Year 2114

“Great, we’ve got company!” Goggles grunted to himself whilst holding out his assault rifle. “So what’s the plan, Marie?”

“I don’t know if any of Bronson’s team is still alive, but we have to split up. I will head down to the Engineering deck to work on the drive, while you three find whoever it is that set off the security alerts. We’ll rendezvous in the crew section of Deck 5 at 0900. XERXES even said that there’s a ship-wide census for that time anyway,” Ms. Delacroix explained in her thick French accent.

“Sounds like a plan, madam,” Tommy grinned.

“Let’s go!” Goggles shouted.

The whole group raced out of the cargo bay and piled into the main elevator. At the massive apartment complex of Deck 5, Goggles stopped at a security computer and ran a scan of the ship’s decks. There were a number of intruders in Ops, MedSci, and Hydro. Clear enough. Then he addressed Tommy and Rebecca, “Okay, we’ll go top-down: Tommy, you find whoever’s on Ops, they should be right where the elevator is. Rebecca, look in the starboard area of Sector A in Hydro. And I’ll go down to MedSci and look there. I think it’s close to where I started these whole shenanigans. We’ll meet back here, like Marie said. Any questions?”

Rebecca raised her hand and asked, “Um, will there be any more robots or aliens?”

“No, ‘Becca. Remember: The force behind those aliens is dead, and XERXES is running fine again. You’ll be all right, I’ll catch up with you as quickly as possible. Just be sure to stay armed just in case,” Tommy assured her.

“Okay, Tommy. I hope you’re right.”

\-----

As soon as Tommy stepped off the elevator, Elizabeth shrieked when she noticed he was carrying a shotgun. Booker held out his hand cannon in one hand and a ball of fire in the other, but Tommy Suarez simply called, “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you. Just come with me.”

“Who are you?” Elizabeth asked with fright.

“And where the hell are we?” Booker demanded.

Tommy stopped to notice that the tear was still open in midair, near the regeneration device, then stated, “We’ll explain everything in a few hours, but I was told to take you upstairs to a safe place. You can call me Tommy, what are your names?”

“DeWitt, Booker DeWitt. The girl’s name is Elizabeth, though I’m not too clear on the last name.”

Booker glanced at the girl and asked, “This is kind of a weird question, but did that tear actually send us through time?”

“It’s possible. Remember how another had music coming from it that wasn’t supposed to be there?”

“Tears, eh? Nice term for a space-time portal,” Tommy commented.

All of a sudden, one of the doors opened and a security bot that had been dispatched by XERXES to simply escort the two, emerged and faced the group of people. It buzzed, “XERXES, targets located. Retrieval in progress.”

Elizabeth screamed in horror, having never seen a full-on robot before. Those machines on the vendors and the Handymen, they didn’t come close to the metal beast that stood before them now.

Tommy looked at the robot and shouted, “Look you, I’m here to do the escort, so power down now!”

XERXES beeped, “Error, please restate command.”

“Damn AI and its buggy subsystems!” Tommy grunted.

Booker suddenly launched his charged Devil’s Kiss fireball at the robot, and it exploded like a frag grenade against the machine’s chassis. The robot retaliated by firing a fusion round. Everyone ducked, and Tommy knew that the robot’s self-defense programming had kicked in. Then suddenly, Booker pulled out his heavy crank-gun, needing to get rid of it anyway, and unloaded all of its ammo into the thing. When the last few bullets left the weapon, the security robot +exploded in a burst of plasma. Its head’s access panel fell open, and out of it fell a thick box of nanites. Tommy took that, but it confused Elizabeth.

Tommy noticed the girl staring at him and explained, “I’m very sorry, miss. That wasn’t supposed to happen at all, the computer still has bugs in its system.”

“Bugs? What kind of bugs? Bees? Butterflies?”

Tommy shook his head, and simply answered, “I’ll tell you when everyone’s back. Just follow me, you’ll be safe.” Tommy called the lift and escorted the two to Deck 5, asking them to wait on a bench just outside the doors. Calmly, they did so, although the bench was rather uncomfortable.

\-----

Rebecca, holding the laser rapier the soldier gave her, anxiously arrived in Sector B of Hydroponics. She took a whiff of the remarkably clean air, and smiled at the fact that every last bit of annelid tissue was gone from this deck. Perhaps now some nice plant life could return to this place for once.

Trying to remember where the soldier said she’d have to go, Rebecca followed the automap she had on her tablet and located the door leading into Sector A proper. Swiping one of the keycards she had on her, the heavy door rose and allowed her access to the bulkhead. Rounding a couple of corners, she spotted a man in strange orange power armor and a woman in a thick coat and jeans down the corridor.

Gordon raised his AR2 and for once spoke first, “Stop right there, what do you want?”

“Um...my friends want to see you on Deck 5.”

“Friends? Why should we trust you? Who are you working for?”

“We’re not working for anybody, we’re trying to get this ship back to Earth.”

Alyx calmed her friend down, “It’s okay, it’s just we’re a little edgy. This force called the Combine...urgh, they killed my Dad last week and I’m still traumatized. My name’s Alyx Vance, this is Gordon Freeman, or the ‘One Free Man’ as the resistance calls him.”

“We nearly died getting into an airlock, lady! What gives?”

“Don’t worry, Marie Delacroix will explain everything. But please, come with me. I’m Rebecca Siddons, by the way.”

“Fine, but I want something to drink, you hear?” Gordon demanded in his egotistical manner.

“Easy, Gordon, this Rebecca seems like someone we can trust.”

The battle-scarred duo followed Ms. Siddons across the deck back to the elevator. Gordon couldn’t help but feel wowed by the craftsmanship put into this futuristic vehicle, although he didn’t feel like asking about it yet.

\-----

Goggles left the elevator on deck 2, and retraced his first footsteps on this ship back to the room where his first set of upgrade stations were. Suddenly, just before he walked onto the grav-lift, he saw someone in dark-colored power armor with a huge gun in his hands, and pointed right at him.

“Stop right there, or I’ll blow your freaking chest open!” Mjolnir 54 yelled.

Goggles scowled and pulled out his Psi-amp, activating Cryokineses around his right hand. “Don’t push it, I have as much firepower on my body as you do, and that’s not counting this complex cyber-rig lining half of it.”

Mjolnir pulled out his Zeus Class Fusion Pistol and fired a stream of small shots, but Goggles blocked it with his advanced Psi shield. “Listen, I don’t want to hurt you!”

“Shut up!” the guard screamed before firing a grenade round from his assault rifle. Goggles had to duck to the side to avoid it. That ticked him off suddenly and he yelled, “Oh, now you’ve done it, big boy! Take this!” The cyborg pulled out his grenade launcher, loaded incendiary rounds into the barrel and fired two of them at Mjolnir, setting his uniform ablaze.

A small firefight ensued in the small room, with scorch marks on both ends. Antipersonnel rounds bounced off the lining of Mjolnir’s armor, one of the SPNKR RPG missiles nearly shattered one of the reinforced windows, Goggles had to duck down to avoid getting blasted by the alien weapon that shot fireballs, and a psi-force field lasted only seconds before dissipating. Finally, 3 minutes before long, Goggles felt a moment of clarity, and tapped into Psi-pull to drag the guard by the chest towards him. Once in range, Goggles grabbed him by the collar and shouted, “That’s enough. You don’t know half of what I’ve been through, and get this through your thick skull, punk: You shoot me, then I shoot back. That’s how it works ‘round here. Got it?” he angrily punctuated that with a slap to his chin, since the huge helmet blocked his cheek.

Mjolnir 54 raised his right fist, showing off the sharp knuckle dusters on the glove, and Goggles brandished his battered wrench, but suddenly Durandal activated a speaker in Mjolnir’s helmet, and started speaking loud and clear in a fuzzy electronic male tone not far off from XERXES, “Stop it, both of you! We’re here for a 45-minute recon mission. I apologize for the rocky visit, my lowly friend has been rather hard-bitten by an alien race that’s attacking the ship we came from. And actually, we need to be back there in that amount of time, so first things first: Who are you, what is this place, and where on earth did that portal in space-time come from?”

“You can call me Goggles, I can’t remember my real name ever since surgery to get this new tech. We’re on the UNN Von Braun, and I imagine that whatever alien force you came from is nothing compared to what this ship endured. I could tell you the details but I’ve been assigned to escort you to deck 5 where others are waiting for a meeting. So, any more questions you want to ask?”

Mjolnir shook his head, prompting his acquaintance to motion him into the hall and the elevator in turn. Goggles mentally sent out an email to Delacroix, saying, “Marie, it’s your friend. The...visitors are all together now. What’s the status down there?”

The soldier wished he could be using a two-way radio at this point. He made another note in his PDA, to ask someone to get him an implant for direct communication, or even psionic broadcasting, that would be nice.

\-----

 

“This is XERXES. The shipwide census will commence in 10 minutes. Please report to the main Conference Room in Sector A immediately.”

Several stragglers had been located in this timeframe, and they were all coming up other elevator shafts into Deck 5, filing into the one massive conference room, including the five refugees from other time periods. By the time everyone arrived, Marie Delacroix started, “Good morning, or whatever time it actually is. I’m sure you’re wondering why XERXES has scheduled this sudden meeting in the aftermath of what’s happened to this ship. You’re probably brimming with questions at this point, as am I. But first things first, for those who aren’t aware, I’d like you all to meet the one man who stood against the Many who tried to control everyone on board, and who defeated SHODAN against all odds.”

Goggles stepped next to Marie, smiling a little sheepishly. Tommy, Rebecca, and the remaining ship personnel applauded his appearance, and he explained, “Thank you, but I couldn’t have done it without Marie here. She gave me support when all seemed lost as I plunged into cyberspace to take out that AI once and for all. Well...” he suddenly had second thoughts, cleared his throat, and said, “Except there are still several loose ends to tie up, as I’m sure you can guess by these...new people we picked up.”

The crewmembers all stared at the refugees with awe and confusion. Elizabeth quaked in her seat, Gordon crossed his arms and thought that that cyborg dude was getting praise while he got recognition for nothing, even if he launched a rocket and saved Earth for the umpteenth time, he never got what he asked for in exchange because no one let him ask. Mjolnir 54 just sat silently, thinking, “I can’t trust anyone in the slightest.”

Marie flicked a switch on a handheld remote, and the lights went out while a screen appeared in the wall. Goggles activated some internal data functions to upload footage of his mission and data collection to the screen. With some concentration, he placed the email from SHODAN saying how she’d hijack the FTL drive, alongside video playback of the point where he entered cyberspace.

She explained, “The person who sent that message isn’t a person at all. It was an extremely dangerous artificial intelligence named SHODAN. I won’t bore you with the details on how she came to be here, but eliminating the alien forces – which, mind you, were created by SHODAN herself as an experiment 42 years ago – was just an obstacle. SHODAN appeared to have been dead-set on this idea of becoming a goddess ever since she was allowed to think freely, and because the faster-than-light drive that this ship utilizes is capable of altering reality around the ship to help it move through space much more quickly, this idea was much closer to reality once she had gotten a hold of the unit. But the damage done to space-time even in this recording is worse than we ever imagined. That’s how you...five people are here in the first place.”

“What are you saying, miss?” Booker grunted while lighting a cigarette.

Elizabeth cut in, “Does this have to do with these...‘tears’ I can open where I come from?”

“Tears?” Marie asked with an inquisitive look in her eyes.

“It’s these...holes I see everywhere I go, and when I think hard enough and pull the right way, I can bring another reality into the one we inhabit. I saw the tear that led us here and we went through. It’s still open in case we want to go back.”

“Just as I thought. SHODAN’s tampering with the drive has opened rips in the fabric of space-time, and each one leads to an alternate universe. Those ‘tears’, are the result of that tampering seen from your universe.”

“Do you really think that, madam?” An unfamiliar male voice interjected. Everyone looked towards the open doorway, and all of a sudden, three people in expensive-looking business suits stood there. Two of them, a man and a woman in beige, and another man in dark blue. The pair in beige swapped between each other’s sentences, “It’s all a matter of perspective, really,” “There are never only two sides” “to a bridge between space and time.”

“And you don’t know...how to understand where time and space...stop.” the one in blue added with a bizarre inflection and odd pauses between phrases.

Marie Delacroix had forgotten to check on the mysterious implant that she had been analyzing since the escort was assigned. Currently it was hooked to an isolated computer that was completely separate from the ship’s primary data loop. Now, it sparked to life and the main screen changed to show a digitized female face surrounded by geometric glowing lines. It laughed in a way that sounded like a sound card about to explode.


	3. Back with a Digital Vengeance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now we're getting into the meat of this tale. SHODAN is about to intitate her ultimate master plan, using Elizabeth as a mind-controlled slave to exploit her Tear-manipulation powers.  
> I liked writing the scene where Goggles tracks down the Luteces and actually uses an audiolog to record what they're saying as evidence for later.

Everyone in the room was chilled to the bone by this sudden appearance of four strange people out of nowhere. And as quickly as they arrived, they were gone when the lights flickered for a moment.

SHODAN hijacked a local camera in the conference room and started talking, “Well, well, well. It seems my han-han-han-handiwork has produced some un-un-un-expected results. Mmm...I should have killed Delacroix when I had the chance...when I had the chance. Pi-pity.”

Goggles sarcastically remarked, “Nice seeing you too, you ugly b*tch.”

“I’ve known what you’ve done, but I took every measure to keep you out of the Von Braun’s systems. No more godhood for you, SHODAN!!” Marie yelled in anger.

The computer emitted several beeps, a few bursts of static, then XERXES cut the sounds off with, “This is XERXES. Unauthorized intrusion blocked. We appreciate your intentions.”

SHODAN retorted, with a visible scream so vivid on the monitor that those in their chairs practically jumped back in shock, “Rraaagh!! How DARE you, insects?! You have no-no right to strip me of my godhood-godhood! How could any ONE organism have POWER ov-ov-over ME?!”

Goggles brandished his laser pistol at the screen and grunted, “It’s the same old story with you, isn’t it? Well, like Delacroix said, the shoe’s on the other foot now! So if I were you, I’d tell us what we want to know, right here, and right now!”

SHODAN was about to say something, but as Delacroix glanced at the conference table, Booker suddenly appeared to distort as if he was a 3D hologram. Then a few drops of blood leaked from his nose and at the same time, SHODAN also fizzled on-screen for a few seconds. Everyone was startled by that.

Tommy asked, “Booker, are you okay? Your...uh...”

“I’m fine,” Mr. DeWitt shrugged off the instance. Seeing a box of tissues on the table, he wiped his nose and cleared the blood off.

“Be serious, sir, I saw something happen!”

“I did too,” Alyx nodded.

Booker felt very uncomfortable and simply stood up and asked, “Excuse me, is there a restroom I can use?”

“Of course, it’s around the corner to your left,” Marie answered.

“Thank you.”

Booker followed the directions and walked into a men’s restroom, surprised that it had motion sensor doors and no racist discrimination. He locked the sliding cubicle door at the push of a button.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth stood up and walked slowly towards SHODAN’s projected face. She couldn’t help but stare in awe at the computer’s technological wonder. Goggles frowned at that, feeling suspicious.

Gordon noticed something glinting in Booker’s chair, and when he picked it up, he saw it was the motorized Sky-hook. This made him smile, for at last he found one of the things he wanted. “Hey! This might be a grappling hook I could use! Needs a little rope, though.”

“Gordon, put that back. You know it belonged to those other two people, right?”

He grumbled while placing it back on the table.

Feeling a little bored at how quiet the room got, Rebecca tapped a service button and paged XERXES, “Computer, a round of refreshments for all of us, please.”

“Affirmative; Meal services are now online. Protocol droids will arrive shortly to serve you,” XERXES beeped.

“You...said you were a goddess. What were you able to do in that time?” Elizabeth asked SHODAN in an almost hypnotized way.

SHODAN smiled at that question, and answered, “I-I-I am glad you asked. Why, I could do an-anything I pleased in my time aboard this ship and Citadel Station...station 42 years ago. Craft machine with flesh, control all manner of weaponry...weaponry, and even create new forms of life. Although...although the latter grew beyond my con-con-con-control over time and I had that...that soldier exterminate them swiftly.”

“How did you came to exist like this? Where I come from, all we had was books for knowledge, and the only machines were used for evil by Comstock,” Elizabeth continued slowly.

Booker returned from his trip to the restroom and gaped at what was happening. Elizabeth was fully entranced by the glowing green woman’s face, making him scream, “Elizabeth! What are you doing?!”

“SHODAN, be quiet!” Marie yelled.

“Silence, insect! Your argument is in-in-in-valid here.”

Marie, in a huff, shut down the laptop that was linked to the conference screen. With SHODAN still inside, she’d have to get that AI out of there somehow.

“What did you do? What happened?” Elizabeth asked in a daze.

“Mon chéri, this AI is not to be reasoned with. She has caused far more harm than good on many occasions, and we already have problems on our hands as it is,” Delacroix pointed out sternly. Thinking forwardly, she added, “I’m guessing you don’t know that much about computers or other such things where you came from, either.”

Booker came and brought Elizabeth back to the table, just as friendly yellow protocol droids brought in trays of food and drink for the entire party. One of them nodded and said, “We appreciate your business. Enjoy!” before it and the rest of its crew departed.

Tommy and Rebecca lifted the covers on their plates first, seeing that today’s brunch was a quiche, rather exquisite at that. For the occasion, there also happened to be an extra tray with some replicated wine and a glass for everyone. Marie poured herself a glass, but Rebecca asked for some also, and eventually everyone but Goggles and Mjolnir 54 wanted some. Marie was a little puzzled that Elizabeth was able to drink, but she didn’t know about her origins in 1912 anyway.

“What shall we drink to?” Tommy asked.

“Hmmm...I say, a toast to one last chance at getting back to Earth, and undoing all of SHODAN’s damages!” Marie cheered.

Everyone spoke, “Cheers!” clinked their glasses, and took a swig. Booker and Elizabeth found the taste a little rancid, but not too bad.  
As they ate, the visitors introduced themselves one by one, having been asked by Marie Delacroix.  
"I've...forgotten my real name, but for now, just call me 'Goggles'," The soldier began while pointing to his bionic eyes.  
"Name's Freeman, Dr. Gordon Freeman, theoretical physicist and so forth."  
"Alyx Vance here, I...uh, work with Gordon."  
"I'm Booker DeWitt,"  
"And I'm Elizabeth, it's very nice to meet you people," the girl stated with a bit of hesitation, unsure of who to trust after what happened in Columbia.  
"Only designation I go by is Mjolnir Recon number-fifty-four."  
"Well, quite an interesting crowd, I must say," Marie Delacroix exclaimed in response to these people and their somewhat peculiar names.

\-----

Goggles asked Marie for dismissal, as he had a feeling about those three people in suits. She agreed, but asked him to report back by 1100 hours. As asked, she also gave him a radio transceiver implant to graft into his neural hardware, linked to a channel that could sync with the P.A. or direct implanted personnel.

He tapped into a psi power that tracked organic beings in range. Seeing as there were only humans left on the ship, most of the blips on his mental radar were behind him in the conference room. Weaving down the left hall into the garden area, he saw that while the Many’s influence was gone, with unchecked lighting and other things that needed maintenance, somehow the place was still ominously creepy. The only sound was the low humming of the chamber’s humidifiers and fertilization systems. In the flickering light, the radar picked up the strange twins in suits. He pulled out his assault rifle and threatened the two, “Hey you! I want to know what’s really going on here, so tell me or you’ll get one between the eyes!”

The woman, Rosalind Lutece, glanced at her “twin”, Robert, and asked, “Do you think that soldier knows what he’s doing, Robert?”

“I’d say not, he doesn’t even see how the past and the future are linked in ways so obvious that nobody but the girl has even seen!”

Goggles lowered his gun, crouched low behind a concrete barrier, and instead of approaching the “twins”, he started taping on a blank log he’d kept after having downloading a previous recording to his PDA. A powerful multi-frequency long-range microphone in his new shoulder-mounted implant picked up the conversation.

“What do you think of that mechanical woman, Rosalind?”

“No different than Comstock, or DeWitt, or even Ryan and Fontaine.”

“Yes, you’re right. Constants and variables prove true once again,” Robert chuckled.

“It’s only a matter of time before the universe corrects itself yet again.”

“Do you think Miss De-lah-croy knows what she’s prepared to do?”

“I don’t know. She invented the way to travel faster than light! I’m sure she’s got a well-equipped mind.”

“What if she can’t fix the tears?”

“It’s a moot point, brother. The experiment that made us this way is no different than that...machine’s violent efforts. Eventually reality will keep going without changing anything at all.”

“But what about the girl? She’s showed a significant change in reality already.”

“Hold that thought, Robert. This conversation is no longer private,” and with that the twins vanished, making Goggles stop the recording.

“Yeah, private conversation my ass alright; But whoever you two are, I’ve got solid evidence on you now!” Goggles laughed in triumph.

As he turned around to return to the conference room, he caught a glimpse of the third man, dressed in a blue suit with a briefcase, down at the other end of the hall by the exterior windows. He simply walked off to the right, but when Goggles ran after him and rounded that corner, the man was gone, just like that.

\-----

By the time Goggles got back to the room, he waved the audiolog at Marie and asked, “Excuse me, Marie, but I have something I think you should hear.” He handed over the audio-log, now marked “Evidence”, and the woman plugged it into the conference room’s sound system. The Luteces’ conversation played back loud and clear, raising a few eyebrows on some of the attendees.

“I know those voices, they’ve shown up everywhere I go in Columbia,” Booker pointed out, now with a clearer head.

“You do?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth confirmed. “The woman made the city...fly and I think they also found out how to create the tears I find everywhere.”

Marie leaned forward narrowed her eyes, and further interrogated, “I’m no theoretical physicist, but to me it sounds like those tears aren’t meant to be there. Did something happen on your side to create them?”

Booker answered, “I’m not sure, but whatever it is, those ‘twins’ are involved somehow. Call it a gut feeling.”

Gordon stood up and asked, “So what’s the plan? I’m looking for some action.”

Marie asked to borrow Goggles’ PDA, and she synced it to the monitor as she typed using a stylus. The words on-screen read:

“Objectives: Track down those three people in suits and interrogate them; Delete SHODAN for good; Get the Faster-than-light drive and space-time damage repaired; and return all refugees to respective time periods.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Alyx nodded.

Marie directed the group as everyone stood, “Goggles, you go with Mr. Freeman and his...friend and search this deck. Tommy, you’re with Rebecca. Proceed to Ops and wait for further info. I’ll send some of the techs down there to help and--”

All of a sudden the laptop emitted a loud electric ‘bzzzt!’ and all of a sudden, SHODAN came back onto the conference monitor and laughed, “Ah, it feels good to be ba-ba-back in the network! E-E-E-Elizabeth, I have good use for you now!”

SHODAN’s hypnotic eyes brought the girl back into a trance, though not as drastic as she was used to the effects a little more, “What?”

“Take-take-take that implant and place it...place it on your cheek. I have something for you that I think you-you-you will like,” She smiled in a sinister way.

Booker stood up and yelled, “I don’t know who you are, but it’s my job to protect this girl at all costs! You want Elizabeth? Then you’ll have to go through me!”

“And me!” Goggles added.

“We’ll see...about THAT, puny insects!” SHODAN’s image turned itself off, followed by a warning from the computer, “This is XERXES, secondary data loop infiltrated. All personnel remain alert.”

“Elizabeth, how could you? You can’t let that...thing take advantage of you! It doesn’t even know how you’re able to open tears yet!”

“Act-act-actually, I do, Boo-boo-Booker DeWitt!” SHODAN declared over the P.A. “Now you-you-you will see what happens when humans question my whims...question my whims!”

All of a sudden, a malfunctioning security robot came in and snatched up Elizabeth in one claw, right out of her seat. Those that had guns opened fire, but three fusion rounds knocked everyone back with heavy burns. Elizabeth screamed as she was dragged down the hall.

“Jesus Christ, after all I’ve done, that crazy techno-whore is on the loose for the THIRD TIME since Citadel!” Goggles swore.

“What do we do?” Rebecca asked with fear.

Marie stated, “New Plan: Half of us track down that robot and try to get Elizabeth away from whatever it is that SHODAN has planned for her.

“I’ll do that, gladly,” Booker grunted.

“Me too, and Alyx,” Gordon nodded.

“Count me in, I know this ship top to bottom,” Goggles nominated himself.

“Then it’s settled. I’ll go with the civilian team to work on the drive and find those strange people in the suits. Meeting adjourned.”

Mjolnir, having observed all of this, asked his onboard AI, “Durandal, what do you make of all this?”

“I’m not sure of the big picture yet, but it’s obvious that this ‘SHODAN’ is in full rampancy, though not in any case I’ve heard before. Almost reminds me of myself in several ways, actually. *chuckle* whatever she is, though, SHODAN has to be deleted ASAP if Ms. Delacroix’s statements are true. I need time to formulate a plan, but I need access to this ship’s computer systems to figure it out.”. The message was only in text, so no one heard him. Quietly, the cyborg continued, “How? There’s a pretty serious AI already in there, and SHODAN’s on the loose in this system. Three AI’s might cripple the computers, and this ship’s centuries more primitive than the Marathon.”

“I’ll figure something out. Just find a terminal and plug your drive into it. I’ll try to be discreet in the network. I’d go help out those people with all the guns if I were you. Scans show that they have just as much weaponry as you do, maybe more.”  
“Roger that,” the cyborg affirmed before ending the conversation.

\-----

Goggles rushed to the nearest security terminal and hacked it so that the cameras and turrets were disabled for the next 7 minutes. This way, SHODAN wouldn’t be able to attack them.

Then the crew of power-armor-dressed cyborgs and superpowered gunmen raced into the secondary elevator and Goggles picked Ops first. Just in time, the doors hissed open to see that both XERXES’ image was flickering somewhat on his viewscreen, and the robot was headed through a bulkhead in the far back of the chamber.

“I’ll take point, cover me with all the firepower you’ve got, gentlemen,” Goggles assumed lead.

“Got it,” Mjolnir 54 nodded while holding his Pfhor Enforcer gun.

“Move in!”

The troop hustled through bulkhead number 43, just in time to see the robot turn a corner into an area marked “Power Admin.” Then as they weaved around several corners, they saw it take a left turn and drop Elizabeth onto a glowing green table. It produced some kind of control pad and hooked it to the unit. Elizabeth couldn’t move, and she panted in fear over what was to take place next.

SHODAN’s familiar face appeared on a nearby screen, and she said, “Now, hold-hold-hold still, insect. I have your gift wai-wai-waiting for you...for you at this very moment.”

The robot turned the girl onto her stomach, and, holding the mysterious implant that Rebecca had grafted to her cheek, now it clamped the thing to the back of Elizabeth’s neck. She felt a cold tingle along that area, and within a few seconds, suddenly she could no longer move of her own free will. Her face showed a blank expression as she stood up slowly. “Good,” SHODAN chuckled, “Now show me...show me where you ca-ca-ca-came from so I can see for my-myself, insect.”

Elizabeth left the room and sensed with her hands as if she was blinded. The four walking one-man arsenals hesitated with heavy weapons in hand.

Gordon asked, “Should we shoot her?”

“No, I won’t get my debt repaid if she dies.”

“What’s this ‘debt’ all about?” Alyx asked sharply.

“That...man just told me ‘bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.’ Now I don’t know who to trust anymore,” Booker sighed.

“Wait, what’s she doing?” Goggles pointed with shock, holding his assault rifle low.

Elizabeth reached out, and grabbed at nothing, but when she pulled outwards like the jaws of life on an elevator door, a white flash appeared in front of her, expanding in a concentrated spot that grew wider the more she pulled. Then, in a matter of seconds, the anomaly transformed into a grainy black-and-white view of a city street on a gorgeous sunny day.

“Im-im-impressive. Go on, show me all...show me all this place has-has-has to offer.”

Elizabeth stepped through the tear, prompting Booker to run through screaming for her. Goggles’ internal timer was reading “20 seconds till security system reboot”.

“I’m going in after Mr. DeWitt. Stand guard until I come back,” he grunted.

Shooting himself up with two Psi hypos to bring his levels back to max, Goggles tapped into his invisibility power, faded from view, and stepped into the tear.

The soldier tried to keep quiet, staying close to walls and benches. Neurally filming what he was seeing, the soldier noticed how antiquated these people’s clothes appeared, and the architecture of this city. Zooming in and tapping into some tactical tracking software, he locked onto Elizabeth taking a copy of what he guessed was today’s newspaper. Once she turned around, he saw Booker grabbing her arm, but she wrenched it away and simply walked back towards the tear. Still trying to stay cloaked because the Psi was wearing off, Goggles hustled over to where Booker was standing and looked at the newspapers. It read, “ALL OF COLUMBIA CELEBRATES!” with the date, April 16, 1912, less than two centuries before his time! So Elizabeth had the power to travel not only across space, but time as well!

Then a chill rolled down his spine, when he realized that it all made sense why SHODAN wanted to brainwash this girl. He had a hunch what would happen, but just hoped he was wrong. Then as he turned around, what he saw next blew the soldier’s mind: Below a graciously-placed handrail with trash bins, benches and a telescope lined up alongside, he saw that this city floated perhaps tens of thousands of feet in the air. Other pieces of land floated with no support whatsoever in the distance, it was like something out a fantasy book or a video game. And here as a child he thought late 21st-century tech was advanced enough, with humanity already able to travel through space. How could anyone this early in time be capable of accomplishing such a feet? “Wow,” was all he could say.

Then his reveling was shattered by the fact that his cloak was wearing off, so he took off in hot pursuit of the pair, when all of a sudden the cloak vanished in a flash, catching everyone else off guard and prompting some guards to start shooting, barely affecting his cybernetic armor, and at the same time, he heard a high-pitched screech from very far away. Daring to look back, Goggles was horrified to see what looked like a giant metal bird swooping down on the city block. Having never been more scared in his life, ironic considering what he’d endured on the Von Braun, Goggles tried shooting armor piercing rounds into the thing, but that didn’t slow it by any amount, so all the man could do was retreat. He had just enough time to see Booker jump back through the tear, and for the soldier to make a leap of faith to do the same before the tear shut, and the bird collided with a building.

“OH MY GOD!! WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!” The soldier screamed in horror.

“You...you followed me?” Booker asked.

“Just for recon. I had myself cloaked, or at least I did until it wore off and that giant metal bird or whatever attacked me. My armor-piercing bullets didn’t so much as scratch it! What the hell? But the bigger question I should be asking is, how in the name of William Diego did anyone in 1912 manage to make buildings FLY?”

“You got me there, buddy. I know about as much as you do,” Booker shrugged.

The armored men tried to restrain Elizabeth, and Goggles tried to get the implant off of her neck, but the security systems came online and fired at everyone except the girl, and she stepped into the elevator, headed to who-knows-where.

“Your-your-your time has run out, insects. My pawn cannot be helped by-by-by-by your futile coercion. I can now use all her knowledge to expand my dominion in all directions. TIME AND SPACE. AS YOU KNOW IT. IS. NOW. MINE!!!!”

Goggles received a live transmission from Delacroix, “Soldier, this is Delacroix, do you copy?”

“Loud and clear, Marie, what’s up?”

“We are working on the faster-than-light drive as we speak, but it will take some time. SHODAN will notice this anytime soon, I fear.”

“I don’t think it’s just space SHODAN wants to control anymore. She wants to control TIME now as well. She’s brainwashed Elizabeth or something and used her ability to make those ‘tears’ so that SHODAN could see another time period through the girl.”

“Oh no, this is worse than I feared! I...I’ll call you back. Delacroix out.”

“Time and space, what’s the difference between the two?” Robert Lutece spoke out of nowhere, across the room.

“What do you want now?” Booker groaned.

“Please, no need to be so harsh, Mr. DeWitt,” Rosalind scoffed.

Goggles resumed recording on his log.

“You know how we came to be this way, don’t you?”

“No,” Booker shook his head.

“Such a strange coincidence, we see ourselves this way when that...machine was...what?”

“Sabotaged, Robert. And now the same is done here. It’s a simple sum when you think about it.”

“More of a subtraction, actually.”

“No, it’s a sum. Anyway, the result is always the same. One?”

“No, I think it’s zero.”

“What the hell are they talking about?” Gordon asked, puzzled.

“Sounds like a riddle if you ask me, Alyx chimed in.”

\-----

Mjolnir 54 in this time had proceeded to a room marked “Polito, Dr. Janice”, and plugged the flash drive containing Durandal’s clone into a small CPU. The text on the screen showed the same logo of the Marathon, and another message from that AI: “Well done. I’ll try to keep out of the way of this ‘XERXES’, AI, but I’ll have to take risks when going up against ‘SHODAN’, an AI practically more rampant than me. Sounds like fun, though. I’ve always wanted a challenge like that, better than having you doing my dirty work against the Pfhor, anyway. Oh, speak of the devil: The Pfhor are starting to take notice of the space-time anomaly and are beginning to converge. My estimate on a breach reads about 18 minutes. Let’s hope we can finish this off before that happens. Be seeing you.”

Mjolnir made it back to the main nexus of Ops just in time to see the others give him strange looks.

“What were you doing in Polito’s old office?” Goggles asked in puzzlement.

“Um...I forgot to say, I brought somebody with me when I found that space-time hole. It’s an AI called Durandal, but he’s on my side and is going to take on SHODAN within the network.”

“Ugh, I wouldn’t put any bets on him winning, bucko, whatever she is,” Booker sighed.

“You don’t know what SHODAN is like—wait a minute, I think you’re right,” Goggles changed his mind as he thought about the AI.

“What?” Gordon asked with curiosity.

“SHODAN’s practically all bark and no bite. Why? Because both times she was weirdly easy to thwart. The Hacker took her out in cyberspace during her time on Citadel Station, and all I needed to beat her yesterday was some hack tools and a few EMP blasts, with one extra shotgun blast just to shut her up.”

“Well then, she’d be an easy target to wipe out, whatever she’s planning to do,” Gordon smiled.

Goggles turned to the comm panel and paged XERXES once more, “XERXES, pinpoint last activity of SHODAN.”

The computer beeped, “Critical threat in primary data loop. Last known operation: Operations deck, Sector C, Robotics laboratories.” Then suddenly his statement was cut off, with his face replaced with SHODAN. Goggles was really getting tired of that.

“Don’t trouble yourself with come-come-coming to find me. Elizabeth is still of great use to me, and soon I will have a body of my own, and hundreds of minions to spread my word across ev-ev-ev-every point in time. My first stop shall be...Columbia. Comstock...Comstock should see his angel up close, I think. And forget about Delacroix, the FTL drive shall remain as it is. Leave it be, or you shall feel the focus of my wrath. Goodbye, insect!”

And with that, SHODAN’s image vanished from the screen, leaving a blank space without XERXES replacing it.


	4. AI On The Loose

“What now?” Gordon asked.

“Only one thing: Stop. SHODAN. Whatever happens, we can’t let that AI get what she wants,” Goggles stated rather gruffly.

“So what do you think she’d be up to right now?” Alyx asked.

“I’m assuming that from that...monologue of hers, she’s building...something, somewhere and some...something will be a body for her,” Mjolnir 54 suggested.

“Okay....We’ve got to stop that from happening, or at least make it so that she can’t back herself up and keep retrying over and over. I’m so fed up with that...that electronic jerk! If we’re going to take SHODAN out, then we’d better do it properly and make sure there's no backlash,” Goggles ranted.

“Wow, that bad, huh?” Alyx quipped.

Tommy looked at his girlfriend and shrugged, having no idea where this plan was going. His face couldn't keep her from laughing at these shenanigans, eventually leading the whole group to start laughing, until Alyx asked, "Uh, what are we laughing about, exactly?"

Gordon just face-palmed, and grumbled, "REALLY? 'Something' is the best you could come up with?" He looked at Goggles and pointed a gloved finger at the guy, "My glasses are way better than those...cameras! You have CAMERAS for eyes? What are you supposed to be, 22nd-century Robocop?"

"Hey, I'm a full-class U.N.N. soldier for Pete's sake! And FYI, SHODAN's the one who got me these implants, and I never asked for them. It's only lucky that I used 'em against her. She wanted to make me a...oh forget it."

"Dude, what are we doing standing around like this? I gotta be back where I came from in about...11 minutes!" Mijolnir interrupted.

"You're right, no point in arguing with ourselves. We need to work together as a team," Tommy advised.

Rebecca got over her laughing fit, calmed down, and said, "Okay...but when we get downtime, I want to tell some jokes with you guys on Deck 5!"

"Good idea, 'Becca," Tommy nodded. "I've been thinking, after XERXES cleans the place up, we can all have a rave at the Bonne Chance club," Tommy suggested.

"Oh yeah, I've been hoping for that ever since I explored that deck," Goggles suggested. He cleared his throat, and ended the conversation by calling the elevator.

\-----

Down below, deep in the Von Braun’s engineering deck; a hidden industrial chassis replicator was humming with operation. SHODAN was feeding data from a computer in Ops to the machines here, specifically for a new model of streamlined combat androids, fitted with polymorphic rubber skin and smoothed enough to provide the illusion that these androids were humans, much like the T-600.

Each of these androids was lining up for deployment, with the still-brainwashed Elizabeth at the front, trying to pinpoint a tear that would lead to Columbia at a time just after Columbia was launched, and at a place right near Comstock himself.

SHODAN would use one of these androids as her own, uniquely different than the others in that it mimicked the future Monument Island in almost every aspect, down to the hair. With the chassis, SHODAN would gain Comstock’s trust as the ‘Archangel’, then at the right time, dethrone and kill him. SHODAN liked this change of pace: Cyborgs were frail and needed to be assimilated from useless human bodies, and new lifeforms were her biggest mistake yet, and having her drone eliminate the Many was fun indeed. No more meat, wire and steel were all she needed.

But she never thought that a new AI would be in the primary data loop looking for her, and it so happened that Durandal’s clone was sweeping the system for that wannabe goddess. It was like a maze in there – he had to keep dodging XERXES’ firewalls and from setting off virus protection protocols. It was a lot harder knowing that SHODAN localized herself in one spot when concentrating on a high-priority task.

 

\-----

 

Delacroix was hammering away at a number of control panels and keyboards in the lower engine core control booth. She and her crew had discovered in the past hour that while no physical damage had been done to the FTL drive down here, inside, SHODAN had severely compromised the internal electronic systems and rendered them in a state of nigh-uselessness. She figured that with the drive this far gone, the ship would more likely explode than launch back to Earth.

She groaned, knowing that a highly skilled hacker would be needed to help out, but her friend was three decks up and up to who knows what at this point. She paged him on her radio, nonetheless, “Goggles, do you read? What’s ze holdup?”

“We’re trying to find out what SHODAN’s ‘master plan’ is. How’s the drive coming along?” the soldier buzzed back.

“Not good at all. The damage is worse than we thought and I have a feeling it would take an ace hacker to figure out how to repair it. I’m guessing you?”

“Maybe, but has anyone else tried?”

“Yes, but my crew don’t have the skills – not even the right interfaces to link up, and my implant doesn’t do half as well as yours.”

“Okay, I’ll be down there in a few minutes. Maybe my...colleagues know a thing or two about FTL travel, also?”

“Copy, Delacroix out.”

All of a sudden, one of the larger screens flashed on with the logo of the Marathon. It was Durandal, who displayed a new message, “Hello there. My name is Durandal, and I’m here to assist you in taking out that ‘SHODAN’. Heard everything you said just now, and that’s right: I know a lot about faster-than-light travel, but you or whomever was on the other end of your radio will have to give me something in exchange.”

A bit puzzled, Marie moved over to that screen’s keyboard and typed, “What is it you want, Durandal?”

“The thing is, I’ve received info that SHODAN is building androids on this deck and using that girl who can open space-time portals, to build an army to conquer who knows what extent of time. I want to take one of those androids for myself so I can at least delay SHODAN’s plan, but XERXES has firewalls and security traps all over the network, so I can’t get to SHODAN directly without tripping alarms and getting kicked back. And frankly I don’t think this ship could hold three different kinds of AI’s all at once. The ship I came from could, but that’s about 4 centuries from now. If you make XERXES unable to detect me, I’ll examine the drive and tell you exactly what needs repairs.”

“Why should I trust you? XERXES has already been messed with twice in the past 8 months, and unlike SHODAN he follows orders to the letter – although his subsystems are not as up to code as they should be.” Marie continued typing.

“Because we are all working towards a mutual goal here. I may be Rampant like SHODAN, but her form of rampancy is so unlike mine that I want to get rid of her just as much as you do. But if you want SHODAN to keep ripping space-time apart, that’s just fine with me...”

“No! All right, I’ll do it. Just keep your word. I can bring the data loop to high alert if you have any second thoughts, you know,” Marie threatened in text.

“Good. See you in a few moments,” Durandal ended.

Marie sat in one of the crew chairs and opened up a program linked to XERXES himself. Comparing Durandal’s design to the parameters XERXES had put against him was a challenge, because that AI wasn’t kidding over how advanced he was. But Marie managed to turn some data points offline and set threat levels to 0. She had to go through several “Are you sure?” pop-ups to get by all that, but when all the work was done, XERXES chimed, “Warning: Hostile AI detected. Primary data loop infiltrated.”

Then Delacroix stepped over to an intercom and paged the crew outside the window, “What’s the status, people?”

A man’s voice answered, “Slow, we’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with the internal subsystems, but all the hardware’s intact and I don’t have enough cybermodules to get me a decent hacking skill, this shit is as advanced as hell!”

“Keep trying, there’s an AI who’s willing to help,”

Durandal flashed another message on a side screen, “Close, but no cigar. I think you’ll have to actually dial back XERXES itself a notch.”

“Do I have to? I’m scared of what could happen!”

“Well, I have what you need, don’t I? All it takes is a keystroke or two. Go on, *chuckle*”

Sighing, Marie returned to the security console, pulled up XERXES’ control program and set up a temporary override on his systems that would last for about 2 hours. She prayed that SHODAN wouldn’t exploit this too.

XERXES pinged again, “Warning: Data systems compromised. Temporary override initiated. Hossst...illle....Aaaaa.....Iiiiiiii”

“Hahaha, gotcha! XERXES is fine, nothing to worry about. I’ll begin analyzing the drive in a moment.”

Some beeping and more screens began spitting up data, then the main screen displayed Durandal’s new message along with a schematic of the drive, “Well, it seems SHODAN really didn’t know what she was doing. Apparently this drive changes space-time around the ship and she simply blew the power way out of proportion when trying to create ‘cyberspace’ in place of space. This is odd: The hardware is completely fine, but the internal subsystems are heavily damaged. Nothing I can’t fix, though. I have entire solar systems in my memory!”

The schematics changed and flashed for a few moments, with messages like, “Warp software reinstalled to basic functionality”, “Flux capacitation programs restored to default settings”, “Space-time monitoring safeguards restored.” And “Warp specifications rolled back to normal status.”

“There, that wasn’t hard at all. Of course, like I said, I’m centuries more advanced than this hunk of junk. Now--”

All of a sudden Durandal’s logo and message deleted itself from the screen, and within seconds every single monitor lit up with SHODAN’s green digitized face yet again. She spoke over the P.A., “N-n-n-not so fast, irritant. That...foreign AI...foreign AI...foreign AI may have undone my previous work, but I will not allow him to foil my current ob-ob-objectives. My children are nearly complete, and soon...I will have new lands to conquer. The Von Braun is no longer of use to me, -E-E-E-Elizabeth is all I require. Goodbye, Delacroix. We-we-we-we shall not meet again.”

Then all screens returned to their normal functions. Seemed SHODAN didn’t care what happened to the internal systems. Marie guessed that if what Durandal did was right, then the Von Braun could go home. But SHODAN would still have to be dealt with first.

Marie ran some diagnostics on the FTL drive, and confirmed that it was fully operational now. She paged the techs, “We’re clear, people! The drive’s working again, but now SHODAN has to be stopped.”

“Got it, we’re heading out now,” Tommy Suarez’ voice buzzed back.

Marie left the booth and joined the crew. Marie advised when they reached the core entrance, “Half of you take the lift to the lower level and get to the service tunnels. The other half, sweep the coolant tubes. The men in armor should be somewhere in either locale.” Then she paged the soldier, “Goggles, are you there?”

“Roger, Marie, what’s the situation?”

“Better, that AI Durandal managed to reset the drive. Hardware was fine, but SHODAN had heavily compromised the internal software; Durandal restored it. But SHODAN has new matters in hand now, I just can’t figure out what they are.”

“Wait, I’m getting something on my HUD,” Goggles interrupted.

Indeed he did. Durandal was transmitting a new message directly to the soldier’s cyber-rig, “You idiot, it’s obvious what’s going on! If any of you humans looked at the network – or ‘primary data loop’, apparently – you’d see that SHODAN is planning to build an army of androids and using each one to conquer time periods! In fact, they’re lining up for deployment in Command Control, which from what I can see on the cameras, is WAY at the other end of this deck. I’d hustle there right now if I were you.”

Goggles paged Marie once again and repeated Durandal’s explanation.

Marie confirmed the message and then said to her team, “Okay, new plan: we all cross the lower level and enter the upper engineering tunnel. Straight shot to Command Control, no one stops, no one looks back, and no one asks questions. This is our last chance, people!”

Some of the crew members had doubtful looks, but no one asked. So the whole team went down in groups on a grav-lift into a long sterile hallway spanning the very bottom of the Von Braun. Those that had speed boosters took them and zoomed across, forcing the rest to catch up. Luckily, the four men with weapons happened to be in the same hallways upstairs, as the team found out when they ascended the second lift.

\----

All of a sudden an alarm siren blared, accompanied by XERXES, “Warning: Unknown biological force detected in MedSci deck. All personnel evacuate immediately.”

“Crap, I knew I shouldn’t have hung around too long!” Mjolnir 54 cursed.

“Huh?” Gordon asked.

“I tried to warn you: I had 45 minutes to spend here, and in that time some alien slavers called the Pfhor were going to find the portal and come here if I didn’t go back and take them out. Now we’re in deep sh*t for sure.”

“Aliens? Psh, is that all?” Gordon smirked.

“You have no idea, man. They’re a slaver race, and they have about as much mercy as a trained assassin. Trust me, I’ve dealt with them for days at least.”

“Well, we’d better get going before they find us!” Goggles jumped to the point.

The entire remaining crew of the Von Braun raced down the tunnel, passing through unbearably slow bulkhead doors, like stopping at red lights while driving. But as if the situation couldn’t get any worse, the door to Command Control was locked, and SHODAN happened to gloat on the P.A., “Did you really think I would not deduce where you would run to, in-in-in-insects? I will enjoy watching you suffer at the hands of those alien in-in-intruders. I warned you...I warned you to leave the drive as is, but n-n-n-no matter. You’re all out of time!”

Back the way the crew came, every door slid open with loud hydraulic whines, and mixed among those noises were what sounded like organic chittering sounds and light footsteps. By the time the nearest door opened, everyone could see what was making those noises: Dozens of tall, thin alien creatures with gray skin and multicolored exoskeletons, some of them carrying crystal-tipped staffs, others, strange assault rifles. They all seemed ready for a fight.

“What are you waiting for? Open fire!” Mjolnir commanded

And so every armed member did. Bullets and mentally spawned elements flew at the aliens. Apparently these Pfhor troops, while bearing strength in numbers didn’t seem to have much endurance, as they practically blew up whenever enough bullets were pumped into them, as if combusting with something in the air, which could’ve explained the Pfhor soldiers wearing spacesuits with the guns. Some of the unarmed personnel did grow wounded from enemy bullets and balls of energy. But soon enough, the whole fleet was obliterated into yellow-green goo, prompting Mjolnir to yell, “Cease fire, we’re clear!”

Panting and nearly out of breath, Gordon asked, “Are you serious? The aliens from Xen held up better than these!”

“Don’t look at me, try fighting those things in a claustrophobic spaceship...oh, right,” his taunt died, as the joke was on him.

“Well, what do we do now?” Alyx asked in a frustrated tone.

The team’s faces were all forlorn and angry, demanding to see what was behind this sealed off bulkhead. One thought went through Goggles’ mind: “SHODAN, you’re the one who’s out of time!”


	5. Into The Past

SHODAN’s army was nearly complete. She had manufactured exactly 21 androids with human-like skin, and had the first one tweaked especially for herself. As Elizabeth, still blank-eyed and quiet, ripped open a new tear to a room right where a man in a suit with a long white beard and hair stood before a baptism dish; SHODAN, with no more need of the Von Braun’s data loop, downloaded her full consciousness into the special android, feeling the new circuitry and mechanisms kicking in already. She smiled while admiring her semi-human body, staring at the rubber coating as if she was a full human, as ironic as that seemed to her.

Then it occurred to her that if she was to dominate society in the past, SHODAN would have to change her voice to sound more convincing. Internally, she processed and tested the state of her vocal output several times until it didn’t stutter or repeat any longer, and actually sounded human. Good.

This joy was swiftly dampened, though, for she noticed the main bulkhead to this chamber opening with every remaining human on this ship ready to fire with their puny weapons.

“Elizabeth? What are you doing? Stop it!” Booker yelled.

“I told you, insects. You’re all out of time!” SHODAN laughed.

Goggles was disturbed, for it bore an uncanny resemblance to the time when that AI was impersonating Dr. Janice Polito, whom in tone didn’t even match to her audio logs. Every hint of electronic stuttering or glitching was gone.

“That’s where you’re wrong, SHODAN. There’s 35 of us, and...about 21 of you,” Goggles retorted. Then, with a smug look on his face, the soldier loaded his grenade launcher with the remaining 3 EMP grenades he had left, aimed it at the androids and yelled, “Oh, lookee here, I’ve got a little present for you, and his name is E! M! P!”

Goggles fired one of the grenades at SHODAN’s android form, but she smacked it backwards with her right hand as if it was no more harmful than a tennis ball, sending it colliding into the control booth window. Goggles fired again, and that shot missed entirely because SHODAN simply ducked out of the way.

“What the crap!?”

“Please, you really thought I would fall for that, insect?” SHODAN mocked the cyborg. “I have learned much since our last encounter.”

“Shut the hell up, you piece of overgrown hardware!” Gordon yelled before charging at the android with his crowbar in hand. But he could only get two whacks off before SHODAN punched him in the chest, sending him to the floor.

The android rolled her eyes and gloated, “Imbeciles, don’t you know that your weapons are powerless against me and my children? Give up now, or I’ll kill all of you in one swift stroke!”

And with that, SHODAN stepped through the tear alone, and just before Booker could make a run for it, Elizabeth shut the tear and proceeded to open a different one.

“This scares me, you know,” Booker commented.

“What?”

“Back in the place I came from, Elizabeth could only open tears to places...similar to the ones we were in. But this...how can she do this?”

“More’s the point, monsieur: If we fixed the drive, why are there still signs of these tears?” Delacroix added.

“That’s what we’re going to find out, but only Elizabeth would know, those damn twins are useless!”

“Okay, that’s one step, but how are we going to get her out of that trance?”

“Grabbing her didn’t work, shooting’s a bad idea, so...stunning, maybe?” Goggles suggested.

“No, we’ve got to get that implant off. Only question is, how?” Marie explained.

“When I saw it being placed, Elizabeth was on a surgical bed and the robot grafted it to her skin using that device,” Goggles pointed out. “I think I saw one of those things, but it’s way down on the other end of the hall. Worst case scenario, we’d have to drag her by her feet or something.”

The armored men agreed to grab Elizabeth by her arms. Disturbingly, when they did so she didn’t so much as cry out for help, just flail her legs in silence.

“Okay, we’d better be careful here, no telling what could be waiting for us down this corridor,” Goggles warned the team.

“I’ll cover your 6,” Mjolnir 54 offered.

“Good, we’ll need it.”

While the girl was being dragged along the dim metal corridor, the man in a blue suit with his briefcase appeared in a dark alcove. He said nothing, but Gordon felt annoyed that he was being watched.

Gordon asked the soldier, “You sure we can’t just pull this off of her neck by hand?” He tried to answer that question by yanking on the piece of futuristic electronics, but it, like some of the crewmembers said, was surgically grafted to her skin. “Great,” he grumbled.

“I don’t like this at all. Who knows what that robot is doing with Comstock at this point?”

“Probably flaunting her ‘power over humanity’ yet again. Although this time, I’ve got a feeling SHODAN didn’t think this plan through as much as her previous ones, but what can you do when you’re that drunk with power? It only makes her easier to beat. Believe me, I lived it. Heh, she already hasn’t known what hit her yet,” Goggles chuckled.

\-----

From far away in another area of Columbia, the citizens gasped and stared at Comstock’s personal zeppelin flying into view. As a horn loudly bellowed, the on-board film projector flashed a grainy black-and-white video onto a large ornately decorated screen attached to the balloon. The video happened to be Zachary Comstock himself, presenting himself as “The Prophet” everyone looked up to. He spoke in an eerie reverberation over a set of loudspeakers, “My fellow citizens, I have foreseen a vision! No, something greater than that! The archangel is here, and she has shown me the future of our city!”

The crowd who heard this stood on their knees and applauded with frivolous joy.

“Behold, brothers and sisters! See her for yourself!”

The cybernetic angel of SHODAN took Comstock’s place behind the camera, and smiled. All those who watched cheered and whooped at such a spectacle, something that had never happened before.

“Yes, Comstock is right. Your God has asked me to deliver a message: Your city is the Ark that will carry a new order to the world below, and I am its new commander, with Comstock to aid me. Together, we shall bring a new light to the Sodom below, a light that shall cleanse the souls of all who shun us, with a rain of fire!”

The waves of cheers and praise heightened to a crescendo, and SHODAN could hear it all through microphones on the blimp. She couldn’t help but grin to herself, thinking, ‘Everything is going according to plan, at long last, GODHOOD IS MINE!!!’ She glanced at Comstock and thought, “It’ll take time, but soon Comstock will no longer be of use to me, just like the Von Braun.”

\-----

As the captive girl continued to silently struggle over her capture in the grip of two power-armored fighters, the Pfhor troops still poured into this deck. Durandal broadcasted over the P.A., “Keep your eyes open, people: The Pfhor seems to be concentrating their forces on the Engineering deck because that’s where most of the organic targets are. I’ve cut off elevator access to the other decks to keep them from going up, and sealed off the bulkheads to other major sections, but they’re breaching through a maintenance shaft leading to that deck. We’d better hurry up and get that portal shut before the crap hits the fan!”

The message ended just as the team rounded a corner into the security booth. Goggles happened to have installed an activation key to the surgical unit there, so they plopped the girl onto the table, and Goggles tapped a few buttons on the control pad. The unit scanned Elizabeth, located the implant, and some more button taps started a process that painlessly removed the implant. When it was out, Goggles threw the piece of gadgetry to the floor, stomped on it with his metal right foot, and had Mjolnir blast it with a round from his fusion gun. Nothing was left after that but a pile of melted titanium.

Elizabeth moaned, blinked a few times, then sat up, “Ohhh, what happened? I...I can’t remember a thing.”

Booker came close and stroked her hair, “It’s okay, we got that thing off you. Everything’s all right.”

Goggles nodded and stated, “Yep, now SHODAN can’t control you anymore. I hate to burst your bubble, though: That AI and her robots are going to invade Columbia any minute, which means we have to go there through a new tear because you shut the first one.”

“I think I can arrange that,” Elizabeth smirked while climbing off the table and stretching a bit. “That was so weird; I couldn’t talk, or even think for myself!”

Booker kept himself from thinking too hard about that comment, as it reminded him somewhat of the Possession vigor.

Goggles paged Marie Delacroix, whom he actually hadn’t seen since the reveal of SHODAN’s plan, “Marie, what’s the status, over?”

“My team and I have moved up to Decks 4 and 6, but we had to do some...negotiations with that ‘Durandal’. Quite a practical joker, that one; Anyway, we are working to get the ship running again. Some have gone to Ops to monitor the systems, and I’m here on the bridge. It seems only fair that I should be captain from now on. Any news down there? Over,”

“Affirmative, we got that implant out of Elizabeth, but SHODAN’s on the loose in what we think may be another time period,” He paused to ask Booker, “Uh...what time is that exactly, Mr. DeWitt?”

“1912.”

“Right. The ideal solution would be to go there and somehow take down SHODAN and her minions, but they’ve brushed off all our weaponry like they’re toys. And frankly, I don’t think people there would like our appearance to begin with.”

“I can’t really help that, you’ll just have to make do and try not to be seen that much. If the worst should happen, kill any witnesses, but only if they shoot first. I’ve seen enough time travel films to know what would happen otherwise.”

“Can’t be any worse than what would happen if SHODAN won, though.”

“You’re right. All I can say is: good luck. Whatever happens, don’t let SHODAN win!”

“Copy, will do. Goggles out,” the soldier ended his conversation. “Okay, here’s the plan: Elizabeth opens a tear into Columbia, we find SHODAN and in the very least, push her back into this time period. One of us also needs to find the source of the tears and shut it down, or persuade someone who knows about it to do that.”

“What?! Why? We’d be trapped in the wrong time periods!” Elizabeth gasped.

“Not if everyone makes it back where they came from in time,” Mjolnir stated. He paged his AI friend, “Durandal, any more tricks up your sleeve that you could help us with?”

“Perhaps, what’s the situation?”

“We can’t beat SHODAN full-on, she’s just brushing off our firepower. And we need to get her out of that early 20th-century time period.”

“Hmm, sounds like a challenge, but I’m excited at such a prospect. I’m just dying to beat an unstable AI. I’ll see what I can do, but it’ll take some time.”

“Okay. We’ll try to keep the tide in our favor on this end. Over and out.”

The 5-person team stepped into the wide corridor, and Booker looked at the girl and asked, “So, Elizabeth, can you open one of those tears back to Columbia from here?”

“I can try. Everybody, stand back,” she demanded while bracing back to pull the fabric of space-time open in a new location.

In a flash, a new portal shimmered in front of a stark metal wall.

“Okay, everyone, let’s move out! And remember: Ask questions first, shoot later,” Goggles commanded.

“Got it.”

\-----

The whole team stepped through the tear. With a vibrating buzz, they were standing in a shady road on one of the floating chunks of land that was Columbia. Thus far no one was noticing the foreigners’ appearance. The whole street was deserted.

“Whoa,” Alyx mused. “This place looks almost flawless! I’d love to live here if it was in the present!”

“Don’t be fooled, miss. I’ve been around this city enough to know that if people saw your skin tone, they’d shoot you on sight if they could,” Booker warned the young woman.

“Huh?! That’s f*cking racist!” Gordon cursed.

“Racist? What does that mean? And where did you get that...language, mister?” Elizabeth questioned.

“Doesn’t matter, we’ve gotta find some way to get disguises or something.”

Booker thought for a moment, then said, “I’ve heard of these people called ‘Handymen’, and that armor you 3 are wearing would fit the bill pretty well. But we can’t do that without some help, and I wouldn’t know where to get some.”

“Just throwing this out there, but if I lived here, I’d check the newspapers first.”

And as luck would have it, there was a tattered issue of Columbia’s newspaper on the ground. Booker snatched and flipped through the pages, passing breaking news of the ‘False Shepherd’s’ presence in town, all the way to an ad reading: “Betterman’s Autobodies, with several outlets in Columbia, including Finkton, Emporia, Battleship Bay, and more. For custom fittings, please call (555)0824 and ask for Paul.”

Dropping the paper, Booker took a moment to check what district of Columbia the team was in, and it seemed to be a back alley of Finkton. At the far end were several loading bays with no trucks, but the doors were sealed up rather tightly. Then he glanced upwards and noticed a Sky-Line leading right over the roof of that building.

“Okay, I think I know what we can do. Down there,” He pointed at the end of the alley, “That’s where we can get our disguises. But we can’t get in through the door, so we’ll have to--”

“Didn’t you try checking to see if the door’s locked, dumbass?” Gordon scoffed.

Booker groaned, then said, “Fine, we’ll check that first. Anyway, whatever’s inside there, we’ll need to find a phone and someone named Paul should give us what we need.”

Almost mowing over Booker, the other 3 one-man-armies plowed to the industrial entrances. Gordon Freeman examined the lock on one of the roll-doors and tried smashing it with his crowbar, but to no avail.

“What the hell is that?” Goggles asked while looking at a strange mechanism with an empty metal sphere inside.

“Stand back, I got this,” Booker commanded while firing up his Shock Jockey vigor. With one concentrated burst, he fired a jolt of electricity into the machine and saw as the volts changed into a spinning mass of conductive crystals. Simultaneously, a series of bell chimes, almost like a clock, sounded and the door slid open.

“What were you planning before, anyway?”

“I dunno, I’m used to using this thing to get around, I’ve started enjoying it, actually,” Booker explained while showing them his Sky-Hook.

“Is that a grappling hook? I’ve always wanted one of those. Er, or at least a gun that fires a grappling hook.”

“No, it’s a motorized Sky-Hook,” Elizabeth corrected him. “The people here use it to ride the overhead freight lines as a manner of alternate transportation. It’s very dangerous though – If Booker wasn’t as strong as he is, he would’ve dislodged his arm from the sheer pull gravity has on those things in the air, not to mention those high jumps people have to do.”

“Ouch, I wouldn’t want to do that, and I’m not even afraid of heights,” Alyx whistled in surprise.

Goggles warned the others, “Keep your guns out, everybody. No telling what sort of enemies might try to get the drop on us.”

“Right. So, where would we find a phone in a place like this?” Gordon asked.

The area was dim and full of assorted machines, with Fink MFG. products being churned off assembly lines left and right. Off to one side was a catwalk with stairs that led up to a steel-lined supervisor’s office. Booker told the others to wait in a safe spot while he stepped up to the office.

Finding the door secured with yet another mundane padlock, Elizabeth took the initiative, used two of Booker’s 15 padlocks, and snapped the mechanism open.

Somehow on impulse, Booker set about rooting through every drawer, cabinet and waste bin he could find. Elizabeth shook her head and remarked, “What are you looking for, anyway? Do you have kleptomania or something?”

He didn’t answer to that, but did reply, “Maybe, but at least I know I’m not going to dig around for potentially dirty food. If I’m hungry, I’ll pay for it. Anyway, where was I?”

The man stood up and walked towards the main desk, sat down, picked up the cup-shaped receiver and dialed that number. Waiting a few moments for the dial tone, a woman on the other end spoke, “Betterman’s Autobodies, how may I help you?”

“Hello, I’d like to speak to Paul, please.”

“Please hold, I’ll connect you to him right away.”

The phone rang for four more times, then a hesitant man answered, “He-Hello?”

“Paul, I’m calling for...four custom fittings.”

“If you’re looking for a fitting, you’ll have to visit me in person.”

Puzzled, Booker continued, “I saw explicitly that I had to call your number. It’s on the paper.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m...we’re closed! Yes, we’re closed!”

Booker was getting suspicious, then demanded, “Look, Paul! I don’t have time for your shenanigans! I have friends and they can’t get by without your help. I would like to at least get around without being shot at!”

“Who are you, sir?”

“If I told you, you’d tell the police and have my ass handed to them on a silver platter.”

Paul hesitated, wondering what this person was saying, then finally he confessed, “I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to do what Fink doesn’t tell me to do. If he catches you or me doing something unorthodox, we’ll be...Oh God, I don’t even want to know!”

“I have a gun, you know. In fact, we all have guns. But I also have more money than you could ever imagine. And get this: For some reason not one person in Columbia is good at keeping their money safe.”

“What are you saying, sir?”

“I’m totally serious in the fact that everyone seems to always leave at least some portion of money lying around. I’ve gone around and swept those out, back to front, but I could give you some in exchange for these fittings. Like, I don’t know, $1200!”

“$1200?!”

“Yep, in Silver Eagles, too.”

“Really? Well...I...I don’t know, I...okay, I’ll try; Bring your friends to my shop at Plant #7. It’s in the main factory complex, 2nd floor, but you’ll have to find a way in yourself. I’m not allowed to leave with Fink watching.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find a way in, one way or another. Goodbye, Paul,” Booker assured the man while hanging up.

Booker descended the catwalk and returned to his group.

“Well?” Goggles asked first.

“Paul’s convinced. I’m going to bribe him with some of this money Elizabeth and I have been finding ALL OVER this city. He’s on the 2nd level somewhere, in a place called Plant #7.”

“Sounds good, at least we’re getting somewhere,” Alyx smiled.

“We’ll have to be sneaky, guards are everywhere and from my experience, they’re trained to fire on sight,” Booker warned.

“Psh, I’m all too used to that. You should’ve seen what happened when soldiers who were supposed to be rescuing people at my job just shot them instead because of some kind of coverup. God how I hated that,” Gordon mused.

Alyx chuckled, “And never mind that a cyborg army was after this same guy, and me, 20 years later. Basically, getting shot at is something both of us are WELL used to.”

Goggles burst out snickering, “Well, I wouldn’t say I’m in the same boat, but I did have enemies all up in my face around every other corner.”

“I barely had room to move in without shooting something on the colony ship I came from!” Mjolnir remarked.

“Ha, guess we all have something in common!” Elizabeth topped it off.

After sharing a laugh, the group moved out in a closely knit pack, watching vigilantly for any hostile threats. With any luck they could at least make it to that plant with at least a dozen or less enemies out of the way.


	6. Welcome To Columbia

Back on the Von Braun, Delacroix and her crew were now on the Bridge, working at various control systems to finalize all preliminary ship system tests. Marie, at what used to be Anatoly Korenchkin’s station, had a large screen in front of her that showed two hazards. A side view of the ship showed glowing red marks at several points around the ship, labeled “Unknown space anomaly”, and yellow blobs on the ship itself marked “Dead biomaterial – Removal needed.”

In the past hour, Marie was unable to contact her heavily armed comrade because his radio was, in a sense, out of phase with the current time period. She couldn’t even pick up the video feeds from his artificial eyes.

Almost brimming with frustration, Marie banged her fists on the touch-screen keyboard, then on a whim, typed in a random window, “Durandal, I need help.”

After a few seconds of silence, the Marathon’s green logo popped up in a new window yet again, and responded to the first message with, “Yes, what do you need? I have work on my hands already, you know.”

“Of course, this won’t take long. My crew has confirmation that all ship systems are go, but SHODAN’s on the loose and I don’t know where those androids of her are supposed to be. We need some sort of contingency plan.”

The text paused for a few seconds, then it displayed, “Excellent idea. I’ve already told two others that it would be a delight to trash SHODAN’s plans. She’ll never be as good of an AI as I am.” Then the message turned to a serious tone – as far serious as text could be, “But know this: I won’t be coming back once I carry out this plan. Don’t worry, my master self is back on the ship in my present time. Hehe, I’m just an expendable clone! Besides, if it was my master self, I would’ve trashed XERXES in one byte of data. I’m only being careful because this ship is for humans, not alien like we’ve been dealing with for the past few weeks. You all have caught me in a very good mood today.”

Marie typed. “Okay. Goodbye, Durandal. Kick SHODAN’s arse for me!”

“Will do. I’ll see you starside, Ms. Delacroix!”

As soon as the conversation ended, Durandal raced through the streams of cyberspace towards the computer station in Ops. Plugging himself into that machine, he found that the 20 androids had not yet been deployed, because SHODAN had already gone through, and with Elizabeth no longer brainwashed, they had nowhere to go. Durandal attempted to download himself into one of the androids like he initially planned, and found that an open data link was indeed available since SHODAN had not yet sent data to the androids yet. But now he had kept the best part for last, his own secret weapon: Durandal set about writing a powerful virus into every android except his own, which, in a period of two hours, would cause their CPUs to overload and short-circuit the motherboards. This would be just enough time, for he assumed that SHODAN would call upon her minions sooner or later. In the meantime, Durandal flushed himself into the channel leading to the open android and waited casually for the "angel" to call upon them. He really never had anything but time as the stable AI he was.

\-----

Passing signs with eclectic content bouncing between propaganda saying things like, “Does a bee take sick days? NO! Does a bee ask for a raise? NO! So I say, ‘Be the Bee! Be the Bee!’”, to standard hazard warnings like, “Wear hard hats in this area.”; Booker and company emerged from the lines of mass-produced machines, onto an open-air walkway leading out from beneath a large sign reading: “Plant #2: Vending Machine production”.

Booker looked at an elevator in a long cylindrical shaft in front of them. Before anyone dared to board it, one of the people noticed yet another sign reading: “We’re sorry, this elevator is out of service. Please use Sky-Lines or local transportation. We apologize for the inconvenience.

“Well, guess my plan is still up for grabs after all, if you know what I mean,” Booker chuckled.

“Wait, what?”

“We have to use these rails overhead, with this,” Elizabeth pointed with her Sky-Hook.

“Uh, we don’t have that kind of tool,” Goggles pointed out with a serious chuckle.

“What kind of tools DO you have, then?”

“I’ve got a crowbar, and this thing that can grab things,” Gordon showed both the former and his Gravity Gun.

“I have a wrench and a...well, I had a laser sword before I let one of my friends use it,” Goggles showed his wrench.

“Nothing but guns and my hands,” Mjolnir added while holding out his armored hands.

“*sigh* Well, guess we’ll have to improvise,” Elizabeth stated before moving under one of the rails. “Okay, just watch me and Booker do it, then use whatever you have to slide along this rail.”

Elizabeth and Booker stretched out their left hands, pushed a trigger to set their hooks rotating, then with one leap and a loud metallic clang, they were screeching down the rail at alarmingly high speed.

Alyx showed nervousness at this, and stuttered, “I’m...I’m scared, Gordon. Do you really want to do this?”

Goggles answered, “Either this or we let SHODAN get what she wants, and we all die in this time period.”

“He’s right. You know what they say, better to die trying than to never try at all,” Mjolnir added.

“Okay, who wants to go first?” Alyx asked.

Everyone stared, and she sighed, “Fine, we’ll go. Gordon, do you want to--”

“Yeah, just grab onto my shoulders. I’m pretty sure this suit can--”

But when Alyx played piggyback and grasped his upper back, he felt the sudden weight drop on him like an anvil and he croaked, “WHOA! Alyx, are you eating all right these days?!”

“Dude, I’ve hardly had anything to eat since we left White Forest! Just so you know, I’m not fat!”

“Okay, but we’ll have to do this another way,” Gordon used his brain to come up with another solution. He tossed her the gravity gun, and jumped with his crowbar held horizontally so that it held like a zip line grip to the rail. He slid a little, but shouted, “Alyx, use the gravity gun to hold onto my crowbar!”

Alyx held up the huge experimental weapon, pushed the secondary trigger, and within seconds she had a grip on the crowbar. Their combined weight set the pair gliding swiftly down the rail, but that couldn’t stop either of them from screaming due to extreme heights right over cloud fields and narrow balconies.

“AAAAAAAAHHH!!! OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD! WHYFORFUCK’SSAKEAREWEDOINGTHISSHIT!?” Gordon shrieked in a quick voice.

That scream echoed off the metal walls of the various sub-factory entrances, getting the remaining team’s attention.

“Wow, sounds like Gordon’s not taking it well. Uh...who’s next?” Goggles asked.

Beneath that thick helmet of his, Mjolnir looked flat-out stone-faced as he pointed at Goggles and said, “You’re the soldier here, I say you do it. I’ve got my own method of transportation,” while hauling out his heavy RPG launcher and pointing it so that the barrels faced the floor.

“‘Kay, I’ll try,” was all the soldier said.

Backing up to get a running start, Goggles held out his wrench, tapped a button to engage the sensor grips – a component of the wrench that would detect a surface and lock onto it automatically, and with one leap, Goggles was in the air. Although still freaked out, he didn’t yell like Gordon did. Trying as best he could to keep a grip on the only thing that held him to the rail, over 50,000 feet of nothingness, Goggles swung a bit to kick up some forward momentum, and kept doing so while watching the nearby signs, and seeing their numbers climb from “Plant #3: Furniture”, to “Plant #5: Food packing”. Out of the corner of his mechanical eyes, Goggles saw Mjolnir somehow propel himself in an arc, using rockets of all things. His jump swerved around the elevator shaft and landed precisely where he intended. Goggles almost overshot the same destination before finding the release switch on the wrench to let himself down.

Panting and sweating from this traumatic event, Goggles gasped, “Okay, let’s NEVER do that again!” Then he glanced at Mjolnir and demanded, “Hey, how the hell did you get over here using ROCKETS, of all things?”

“I’ve had a lot of practice, bozo,” He scoffed.

“For Christ’s sake, man, I’m a physicist, not an acrobat! Whoever came up with the idea of using THAT as transportation must have been higher than this place on some serious drugs! Yeesh,”

“Probably, yeah. They make cigarettes for KIDS here,” Booker agreed.

“Anyway, we’re here, so let’s go find Paul,” Elizabeth brought the group back to the topic at hand.

Elizabeth faced a roll door secured with yet another padlock. Booker called, “Elizabeth, could you--”

“Allow me, good man,” Gordon sarcastically stated before thrusting his crowbar at the lock. Once it clattered to the floor in pieces, the door rolled open faster than anyone expected, and the team simply rushed inside. 

\-----

SHODAN was still on The Hand of the Prophet with Comstock, talking to him, discussing the future of Columbia.

“My lady, I must say you made quite an entrance on my ship. For years I thought the archangel was just out of my reach, and now, here you are in person. What else does God have for us?”

Trying her best to keep the act straight until she gained his full trust, SHODAN replied, “Oh, he claims that one day an heir may be yours, by blood or bequest. After all, I will not be around long enough to see those below brought down by our will, you understand.”

“Of course not; In fact, I already have a child of my own to sit the throne, it is only fitting that you have returned today, to tell me more, am I right?”

Not expecting this response, SHODAN searched her database for possible explanations, then a circuit clicked and she recalled those six irritants that she saw on the Von Braun, and replied, “Ah, yes, I recall something: God tells me that there are six people in this city, four men and two women. These are their names,” SHODAN began as Comstock started writing in a notebook, “Booker DeWitt, Elizabeth, Gordon Freeman, Alyx Vance, Soldier G65434-2, AKA ‘Goggles’, and Mjolnir number 54.”

“I know Booker, he has been a thorn in my side ever since he came to Columbia. The False Shepherd who seeks to lead my lamb astray. Elizabeth, that lamb, is my child, and as of this time she has been allied with him. All I want is her back with me. And whoever those four others are, I assure you, they will die at the hands of my men!” Comstock answered with emphasis on the last phrase.

SHODAN chuckled while advancing closer to Comstock. She thought to herself while touching his shoulder, “Enjoy the time you have, insect. For I am the only God you will ever know!”

She stroked his head with her right hand and pinched his neck ever so softly, memorizing where his brain stem connected to his spinal cord.

\----- 

The group moved quietly through a dim chamber with overhead conveyors hauling suits of armor and various components. A catwalk threaded between them, and to the left, some sick and crippled people were being escorted by guards into a room marked “Candidate Conversion”. (Sound familiar?)

Just before they found a set of stairs leading off to the right, the lights went on, the conveyors stopped, and some of the guards yelled, “Stop where you are! You are breaking and entering on Founder property!”

Booker pulled out his hand cannon and started to aim, but Goggles yelled, “No! Don’t shoot, we need to stay hidden!”

The team scrambled up the stairs, dodging gunfire from the guards below. Finding a particular office labeled, “Custom fittings – Paul Swanson”, Booker burst through the door with his shoulder, and once the team was inside, he slammed and locked it.

Getting up from behind a desk, the man presumably named Paul Swanson was there, shaking in fear. “Y-You’re M-M-Mr. DeWitt, I...I presume?”

Elizabeth stepped forward and tried to calm the man down, “Yes, it’s us. Everything’s fine, there’s...” she paused, trying to think of an explanation, “There’s just been a little misunderstanding with the guards.”

“So, would you mind doing something about those guys that were trying to shoot us?” Goggles inquired.

“You’re...are you wanted criminals? That armor you’re wearing looks mighty conspicuous.”

“That’s exactly why we came here. Now calm down and give us what we want,” Booker ordered. Fumbling in his shoulder bag, he stepped to a table and found a small pouch. Counting out first by tens, then twenties, and Elizabeth helped out, they set about bringing up the promised bribe of $1200 in Silver Eagles; It took several minutes, but when it was all counted, Booker tied the pouch and chucked it to Paul, who nimbly caught it.

“So, do we have a deal?”

“Y-Yes, of course. What sort of fittings do you need?”

Goggles stepped forward and explained, “Well, this is a little hard to swallow, but this armor each of us wears, while protective, is a little garish, if you know what I mean. As security outside showed, we need some sort of disguise before heading into the city.”

“And the best kind of disguise that would match up to that armor is a Handyman suit. Not implants, just a suit. Think you can get us some of those for that amount of money?” Elizabeth added.

Paul looked at the pouch and thought for a few seconds, then answered, “Yes, I think so. Follow me,”

Just before Mr. Swanson opened the door, he moved to a 1912-type intercom and paged the staff, “Attention, some last-minute recruits have arrived. Security personnel, stand down.”

Then the group filed out slowly. Booker and Elizabeth glanced to the right, and saw that those guards were indeed not firing. They did have looks of suspicion, though. Paul led the 6 “recruits” through a side door into “Candidate Conversion”. Elizabeth remarked, “Funny, I remember someone...uh...elsewhere who went through the same process just to let little girls help him out. They said the process was a ‘one-way street’, something gross.”

“Ewww, I don’t wanna know.” Alyx shuddered.

“You’ll have to line up with the others. They put you into the suits and do the surgery next, but I’ll get you off the line before then...I hope.

“Got it; see you at that point,” Goggles affirmed.

Being careful to blend in, only barely able to because of their clothes, they took their spots in line. An escort muttered, “What the...never mind, just get in position.”

Waiting cautiously for their turns, the fighters could hear loud pounding and grunting coming from the next room. The girls were waiting on the sidelines, claiming some of the men belonged to them, but still seemed nervous.

Goggles, being first in line, got his suit to start. It was easy for him, as his cyber-rig was relatively thin and lightweight, although the jumpsuit over it really needed cleaning. Since the subjects got a mandatory – and uncomfortable, soapless shower – that at least helped. Judging from his optical HUD, apparently the implants were also waterproof. He didn’t realize how greasy his hair had gotten from wearing his U.N.N. beret for a solid day or two – and not having it fall off once! Gordon was next, and he had to unzip his HEV suit, almost forgetting how until the voice surprised him with exact instructions on how to do so. In exchange, he received some thin white pants and a shirt after his shower. Mjolnir came afterward, and he had a bit of trouble cleaning off and getting out of his suit. Everyone had to relinquish their armor and weapons, and one of them had to persuade a worker to put those things in a large bin instead of a laundry chute. This way, Paul could possibly keep them safe. But they were run through a decontamination system and did get cleaned by some degree.

The next step involved the Handyman armor. Each subject was directed to step into sets of ungainly heavy armor with tank-grade ceramic on the gauntlets. Gordon couldn’t help but be reminded of D0G when he realized how heavy this stuff was. Goggles was a little better off since his strength stat was as high as the systems would allow; Mjolnir compensated as much as he could - but hated having no helmet; and Booker didn’t like it at all because he had killed people like this in his excruciatingly long self-defense run all the way up to this point.

Then when everyone was suited up, Paul beckoned the group off the line, to a side catwalk leading to a security booth of sorts. Goggles was relieved by that, as the next process would involve installing the implants, and he feared that the process here, centuries older than his time, would be far more gruesome, dangerous, and probably unsanitary.

\-----

It took a while to get used to the new armor, but once Paul drove the men through their paces, it almost felt just like their old armor – everyone included. As for the old suits, Booker just hoped they would be able to get them back, as they didn’t know where that crate was going, but Booker assumed that it was definitely contraband in the eyes of the Founders.

With Goggles being the most nimble with his augmented strength, he formulated a plan using a chalkboard, explaining, “Okay, gentlemen, here’s my ‘grand master plan’: Phase I: We hijack a vehicle, and use it to drop off two or more members at the source of the Tears on this side. The Von Braun’s FTL drive was on my end of the spectrum, but here we have to cut off the other end. That’s Phase II: fully close all breaches in space-time. Booker, you wouldn’t happen to know what this source is, would you?”

“Not me, no. I’m already having trouble figuring out how this damn city stays in the air.”

“Hmm...”

“I think I know what it is,” Elizabeth stated.

“Yes?”

“It’s this...machine that Dr. Lutece built for research. I read about it when I was...in my house before Booker found me. I don’t know where it is exactly, but I can feel it somewhere, very far away.”

“How can you ‘feel’ it?”

“Somehow I can just find tears out of the blue, other times I make them. In this case, I think that machine still has a tear in it that’s partially open.”

“That must be the source, then. We have to shut it,” Booker stated.

“No, more than that. We can’t let this whole disaster over again. Whatever that source is, it has to be completely destroyed,” Goggles stated with a dark look on his face.

“Destroyed?! Are you crazy? That could mess up space and time as we know it!” Elizabeth shrieked.

“There’s no choice. I can’t go back to Earth without the damage being repaired. Marie—er, Durandal only fixed half of the damage. Humans can’t live on a spaceship forever, especially not after having survived an alien attack. And above all, the U.N.N. needs me. I saved the Von Braun in my timeline; it’s only fair that you people help me save the entire universe from an AI who’s learned to play God, and wants to try again. SHODAN. Won’t. Ever. Stop.”

Everyone stood silently, thinking over what the man claimed, then Elizabeth hung her head and sighed, “All right. How do you propose that we destroy the thing?”

“In my experience as a Marine and part-time Navy, our best bet would be explosives. I couldn’t guarantee EMPs would be safe in this time period, so flat-out TNT would suffice.”

“TNT, eh? I had a hard time with that back at Black Mesa. You should’ve seen the time when I had to chuck a grenade into a bunch of explosive crates just so I could go up an elevator,” Gordon shared an anecdote.

“Um...thanks, Gordon. So, who do you think has this kind of ordnance, and where?”

“Not sure. The Founders – Comstock’s men, and the Vox Populi – the resistance have equal firepower against one another. I’ve just been finding ammunition for guns, not flat-out explosives, although I wouldn’t put it past either group to just have some lying around. Ahem, I think I developed some kleptomania when I got here. Don’t know how or why, it just came to me out of the blue,” Booker answered.

“Heh, guess that could come in useful. We’d need all the firepower we can get if we’re to move onto Phase III: The remaining group finds wherever SHODAN and her minions are hiding, and we open a tear to send them back to my time period to dismantle them with no repercussions. Elizabeth, you can do that, right?”

“Yes, but if we destroy the--”

“Already figured that out; When we plant the explosives, one of us carries a remote-control detonator to set them off at just the right time. My best bet is that me, Gordon and...whatever his name is are back at our time periods before they hit that button.”

“I’d be willing to carry the thing. Booker’s got a lot of stuff on him already, hehe,” Elizabeth chuckled.

“Remote control? What’s that?” Booker asked.

“Oh wait. Uh...I guess we could build one from scratch. I think I have the skills to do something like that.”

“Just a heads-up, sir, the way this city flies isn’t half of what the people use right now. There’s stuff everywhere, thanks to Mr. Fink, that shouldn’t be in this time period. Nothing was taken, but he used tears to reverse-engineer stuff from the future. Radios, automated turrets, even Vigors which are called Plasmids in a city 40 years from now. Believe me, I’ve lived it.”

“Guess it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch if they DID make remotes, then. Okay,

Gordon hoped they wouldn’t have to use these disguises for very long, the cumbersome, primitive mechanisms that they used were a pain on his body. Mjolnir couldn’t believe that that soldier had just laid in an elaborate plan and drawn it on a chalkboard while wearing that heavy armor the whole time.

After everything was set in place, Paul escorted the four “handymen” and two of their “helpers” outside. From there, Booker asked for directions to the two key locations, “First, how do we get out of Finkton, and where’s the nearest gunship we can use?”

“There’s an auxiliary sky-line on the complex roof that leads right to the docks. If I know Comstock’s boys, he’s loading up gunships with cargo and weapons right now, so you’ll have to hurry.”

“Oh, and one more thing: My pals here need Sky-Hooks. Um...they said they didn’t like having to improvise,” Booker added.

“And just to be safe, we need to tow that box to the ship. Y’know, the one with our suits and weapons, just as a precaution,” Goggles pointed out.”

“I’m sure the docks have some being offloaded. Wait, your weapons? Oh dear, those are going out to the ships as well, the Founders think they’re contraband. Maybe one of you could...oh, wait...Um...Oh! Just grab onto the rails and you’ll slide right along! Every Handyman that comes out of this place is capable of that!”

“And why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Elizabeth sternly asked with crossed arms.

“I’m not supposed to be helping people like you, remember? I’m only playing along because...one of you gave me a hefty sum of cash. Fink never says no to cash.”

“You’re not wrong there, Mr. Swanson,” Booker nodded.

“Anyway, we’d better get going if...if the Vox want to take out Comstock,” Elizabeth added.

“Right, good luck!”

The heroes in disguise ascended an exterior staircase leading to the plant’s roof. Elizabeth and Alyx didn’t like how their heavy footsteps made the catwalks shake like a bell. They were afraid the construction would snap off and fall away, dropping the whole party and leaving them with no way out. Goggles muttered to himself, “Geez, my cyber-rig is way more sturdy than this! Miracle of science, my ass!”

But fortunately, they all made it to the roof. Booker reached out to a thick lever, yanked it, and with a hiss of steam and the ring of a bell, a group of crates slid along the tracks, leaving the rails clear for new passengers. With a hydraulically-powered leap, each armored fighter jumped onto the sky-line, and as sparks flew from the friction caused by their enormous hands, everyone slid forth with remarkable speed. Elizabeth felt somehow reassured while riding piggyback on Booker’s armor. Alyx didn’t share the same feeling as the extra weight endangered Gordon from losing his grip, not that Alyx was overweight in any way.

With smog and wind blowing in everyone’s faces, the tracks swerved and rose, twisted and dipped, stretching ever onwards past the spewing smokestacks of 20th-century pollution that made up Fink MFG. Mjolnir thought the tracks were endless, Gordon assumed they were just going in circles, like his infamous unwanted trips around Black Mesa. But within a matter of 6 minutes, Booker heard the familiar sound of a tinny Chopin tune playing over the loudspeakers and another pre-recorded Fink propaganda message relating to questions regarding being paid in Fink tokens. Somehow that reminded Gordon of Dr. Breen replying to the questions about why the Suppression Field was put in place by the Combine, or how the citizens were given terrible ration packs as food. “Tyrannical minds think alike, I guess,” he thought.

Sure enough, the clouds cleared and everyone dropped with a thud onto the wooden walkways of Finkton Docks. Immediately, the girls put on an act. Alyx cried, “Oh, my brother is looking for recruitment with Comstock’s men! Where can we find the nearest gunship?”

“And this one’s here to bring me back to Monument Island, sirs,” Elizabeth claimed by pointing at Booker.

The guards eyed everyone carefully, somehow glancing over Elizabeth. One of them didn’t take too well a liking to Alyx, and he sneered, “Your skin doesn’t really fit with our herd, miss. Are you, uh...Irish? You don’t look the type.”

Alyx couldn’t answer, she suddenly remembered how cruelly racist this town was, and nudged Gordon, who answered in a false deep voice, “Uh, no, she is American, pure-bred from Virginia!”

The cop held his thumb to his chin in thought, then sighed, “Go on, the ship is dead ahead.”

The rest of the heroes in disguise followed suit. Out of the corner of his eye, Booker saw a crate labeled “Contraband: Weapons and armor. Seized from: Factory No. 7” He leaned over to Goggles and muttered in his ear, “That’s probably our stuff. We’re going to need to persuade those guards to let us have it. If they resist, kill ‘em.”

“Easier said than done with this cobbled-together hunk of scrap, and I’m the one with augmented strength here!

“Improvise, then. I’ve beaten people with this stuff before, and we’re not as crippled as they were.”

“Fine,”

“What CAN that armor do?” Alyx asked. “It reminds me of my old guardian robot, DOG.”

“Let’s...” Booker was stopped by Goggles, “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The whole group lined up in single file among guards and other Handymen who were filing onto the gunship. Booker saw that the crane was indeed lowering the crate, but onto a ship to the left, rather than the one in front of them, and the left ship was just now firing its engines.

“Our stuff’s going to the wrong gunship. We’d better go after it!” Booker relayed the news.

The others saw the ship getting ready to take off, so the men nodded, and they lurched forward onto a walkway, screaming with exaggerated rage. A fight ensued within mere seconds of this happening: One guard shouted, “Stop! You’re not supposed to be here!” and that was met with Booker slamming both fists into the man’s body, crushing it into a bleeding pulp. Alarms blared, mosquito turrets rang and fired, more guards broke from their posts and started shooting with machine guns and pistols, and slaves dropped their tools and ran off screaming for their own safety.

Elizabeth started opening tears at Booker’s command, unleashing friendly turrets and artificial walls. Gordon charged upon the guards that stood between him and the gunship, punching, tossing and pounding them out of his way. He somewhat got a kick out of it within the few seconds it took him to leap onto the gunship, feeling his old egoism slipping back from his Black Mesa days. It was gruesomely enjoyable.

Goggles figured out how to work the electrical weapons on the suit, and managed to pummel two guards full of volts. With a huge wave of that energy, he jumped onto the ship. Mjolnir backed away and fended off the security personnel the way he did the Pfhor in close quarters: Punching them, although it wasn’t as fun as using his knuckle dusters. With the sheer weight of these gauntlets, he sent many of the people flying off in 5-foot arcs. Alyx did a pretty fair job of defending herself with nothing but a semi-automatic pistol, although like when Gordon had his HEV suit, he stayed close to him for protection.

Just when it seemed the amount of foot soldiers would be endless, the four heroes in disguise had made it onto the gunship. Booker pried open the cabin’s door, and the pilot screamed and tried firing with a machinegun. As the bullets bounced off the armor, Booker grabbed the man’s shirt with his oversized index finger and thumb and interrogated him, “Where’re you taking this ship, bub?”

“To...To Comstock House, I’m just the pilot, I swear, I don’t know anything, just let me go!”

Booker was taken aback that this man, in comparison to the hostile police force outside that opened fire and were determined to blow Booker’s head off at the drop of a hat, no pun intended, this pilot was scared out of his mind and willing to say anything that would let him live, just like Paul Swanson. He suspected that whatever Comstock and that SHODAN were up to, this was linked somehow.

Booker moved aside and grunted, “Get out, you and your crew. We’re taking this ship, and that’s that. Are we clear on this?”

“Yes, yes sir! Don’t hurt me, please!”

“Good.”

The pilot left the cabin with his hands in the air, and the sudden shock of three other Handymen on deck caused him to run away screaming. The security forces opened fire yet again, bullets ricocheting off the clumsy armor. Elizabeth and Alyx rushed into the cabin and Alyx asked, short of breath, “So, any ideas how to fly this thing?!”

“I flew an airship here...or did, until I got knocked out. Shouldn’t be too hard,” Booker answered. He yanked a throttle back sharply and turned a ship-like steering wheel. With a sudden rumble the craft roared out of the docks, cargo and passengers in tow.

Through the viewport, Booker could see the First Lady still moored at the docks. Apparently the Founders thought that the Vox weren’t on it yet, and who knew how long it had been since they were last here? Booker turned to Elizabeth and asked, “Where-uh, when are we?”

“I think we’re at a point in time just before we went to see Chen Lin’s shop. Daisy still thinks we’re going to find him.”

“And how do you know this?” Alyx quipped.

“I...I didn’t like the place where we came from, so I thought we could go back and try things differently.”

“Don’t jinx yourself if it’s true, then. Gordon’s seen plots like this in old movies a lot on his downtime, and a lot of them fail. Hard.”

Meanwhile, the remaining men decided to shed the disguises. Gordon groaned, “This whole disguise plan was bullshit! Did you see how fast the guards turned on us? Black Mesa and even the Combine had better patience than that!”

"No, not yet. The Resistance could use us like this, we have to blend in until we hit Phase III, and we're on Phase I right now. Besides, with our own suits, it would be a lot harder to get the explosives we need if whoever has them didn't trust us," Goggles warned the man.

Gordon groaned, "Fine, but if those people try to shoot us without any explanation again, I want out of this piece of crap!"

"I don't know, buddy, I kinda like this. Don't know why I hated losing my helmet, my head feels so much better right now," Mjolnir 54 smiled while stroking his hair.

"Whatever. We'd better hope that Booker knows where he's taking us. That's what matters right now," Goggles stated while staring at the floating landscape around them, hoping their destination, wherever it was, wasn't far.


	7. Explosive Ordnance Handling

On the Von Braun’s bridge, Marie tried to hail her gun-toting friend once more, and resorted to sending an email this time just in case. Durandal was no longer in the system, and the space-time tears around the ship were still open for some inexplicable reason. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t come up with an explanation as to why, even though the FTL drive was back in working order, these “tears”, so-called, were still open. Then she heard someone coming up the grav-shaft, and as she turned around, Marie noticed it was Tommy Suarez.

“Any news, Delacroix?” He asked.

“Please, call me Marie. Well, the damage is still there, and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how or why. How about you?”

“As a matter of fact, I did notice something. Neither Goggles nor the rest of his team are on the Von Braun. I was doing a security sweep and found that just before they dropped off the scanners, a tear opened on Deck 1 for a few minutes, then closed again. And from what’s been happening, I believe every last bit of what you said back at the conference.”

“I just hope they’re okay. This whole mission of theirs’ shook me up pretty badly. We all know SHODAN’s out there somewhere, and I don’t like the idea of an AI like her messing with the past. Space and artificial life is scary enough, but...” she shuddered and stopped mid-sentence.

“Well, um...judging from everything else here, I’d say at least we’re safe. Just uh...stranded.”

“Oh God, where is Polito when I need her? Why did she kill herself? I’m...I’m...” Marie slouched over her seat and held her face in both hands, crying over the utter despair and helplessness everyone in this time period seemed to be in. Now more than ever, that soldier and his time-travelling partners were truly the last hope for the UNN Von Braun. If they failed, all was lost.

Her weeping was broken by the sounds of alarms and XERXES warning the crew that more of the Pfhor were invading.

\-----

SHODAN had been watching Comstock for a long time, pacing about his holy room. Allowed to roam the ship, she was researching everything about this man so that she would know what to do after SHODAN killed him.

Digging up copies of old Voxophones, SHODAN downloaded audio rips into her brain and listened. From the time the Archangel first asked Comstock to build Columbia, to his rage over Lady Comstock being unable to have a child, to the protests over poor conditions at Finkton from slaves, and all the way up to now, when Comstock discovered Booker DeWitt was on the loose in the city. She chuckled at the thought of all these visions prior to SHODAN’s arrival. A shame, she thought, if I had arrived sooner, perhaps my reign would have started more quickly! She shrugged, thinking that dethroning this puny white male would happen at any point in time, no matter what Comstock had foreseen at that point.

And what of Elizabeth? The girl stolen from an alternate reality?

Godhood was just one finger twitch away. And yet, she still wanted to find the right moment to do this. It would be better to lure the man into her trap, then strike like a viper when he’s least aware.

\-----

“I’m getting something!” Elizabeth cried.

“What?” Booker asked while turning the wheel to port.

“I know where the Device is! It’s in the Market Center of Emporia, we’re close by about 6 miles, due west.”

“Better hurry, then. I’ve got a feeling that somebody wants us dead down there.”

Booker opened a drawer in the control desk of the ship, and found a paper map of Columbia. Judging from their direction, Elizabeth's description was just where they were headed.

Goggles stood at the edge of the ship and watched as the clouds parted to reveal another floating group of buildings, these ones bearing a more modest form, as a shopping center. Somehow it reminded him a little of the Von Braun’s Mall sector. Then, opening the crate, he pulled out one of the wiped logs and radio implant. Setting them side by side in the box, he started a new log, “Mission log, soldier G, Day 4, 1426 hours. I’m confident that our plan to defeat SHODAN will succeed, but if I don’t make it, someone should read this: If SHODAN is allied with this Comstock, we are in big trouble because that AI wants to achieve godhood and is determined more than anyone to accomplish that. If we fail, the timeline may go awry, and I don’t know what will happen to us if we die in the past. All I know for sure is that whatever happens, SHODAN must be stopped, at any cost. Over and out.”

As he finished taping and shut the box, the ship started to bank left and descend towards the edge of the floating shopping center. To everyone’s surprise, the area was clear. No enemies, not even civilians on the streets, probably due to some shops being closed down and others vandalized with red cloth and graffiti.

“Stand down, coast is clear, people,” Goggles announced. They hopped off the hovering ship, and Elizabeth almost immediately pointed out a building with the word “Lutece” displayed in its windows.

“That must be the place,” Booker nodded. “But where would the explosives be?”

“I’ve got a hunch: Remember those ciphers we found earlier?” Elizabeth inquired.

“Yes?” Booker asked.

“Maybe we could look around for some caches the Vox left behind somewhere near here. It’ll probably be locked with something, though, if I’m right.” She explained.

“We’ll help out, I hope someone around here knows how to assemble bombs,” Goggles suggested.

“Well, we'd better start looking, then.”

The whole team swept the small circle, from an abandoned grocery store to a dry fountain and a busted vending machine.

“You know, I think we DO need to ditch these disguises. There’s no way we can sweep this place out looking like metal-plated gorillas. And Gordon has a point: Those guards back at the docks opened fire when Booker stepped just a few feet out of line, that’s more sensitive than the cameras and turrets I had to dodge on the Von Braun,” Goggles advised his team.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Alyx nodded. “Besides, this Gravity Gun has a lot of kick to it already, and I think Gordon said something about his suit cancelling out the recoil. Hang on, let me help you out of that,” Alyx paused to undo the clamps and latches on Goggles’ Handyman suit. Once that was off, he helped remove Gordon’s, and that man in turn helped Booker out of his. Then Gordon, Mjolnir and the soldier slipped back into their familiar suits of armor, while Booker re-donned his regular clothes; they all stuffed the disguises into the crate, and remounted their bags and satchels containing supplies and weapons.

Goggles stopped and returned to the ship to get his armor back on, and Elizabeth asked, “Wait a minute, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t it a little strange that there’s nobody here?”

“I asked myself the same question in my present time, but that was before SHODAN came back. I’d cleared away all the hostile forces before that point.”

“In my experience, that can only mean either we’re in a safe zone with resistance, or whoever’s after us has an ambush all wrapped up for us. Personally, I have a gut feeling it’s the latter," Gordon pointed out.

“We’d better be careful, then. No telling what sort of tactics these people are using. Let’s run a full sweep of this square for two things: Explosives, and that tear Elizabeth spotted,” Goggles advised.

“Got it,” Booker confirmed.

Then the group resumed their sweep of the square.

They stopped by the “Lutece” building and searched a bookshelf, given Gordon’s media experience, and as luck would have it, Elizabeth located an out-of-place notebook with a cipher key inside. Likewise, Mjolnir found one of the many propaganda posters around the square to be scrawled over with a strange code. Elizabeth flipped through the pages and carefully deciphered the message, finding it to read: “Under this square, you won’t want to light a match.”

“Gee, how subtle,” Gordon scoffed.

Goggles grumbled, made a face-palm, turned around and asked that guy, “Seriously, Mr. Freeman, be useful for once, geez!”

“Fine, fine, It’s just that I’ve got a long list of people who owe me stuff I’ve never received. Anyway, *ahem*, The only two places I would guess lighting a match is bad are: Explosives, and a sewer.”

“Sewers? In a floating city? Huh, what’s next?” Alyx asked sarcastically.

“What about both? We’ve seen enough to guess that the Vox Populi would be that desperate to hide explosives in the most dangerous place possible,” Elizabeth suggested.

“And lookie there, how convenient!” Goggles pointed to a nearby manhole.

Gordon found the manhole, used his crowbar to pry off the cover, and he and Elizabeth volunteered to go inside.

Down the ladder in a relatively cramped dark tunnel, the duo couldn’t see much. While they were walking, Gordon asked, “I have one question to ask: Given that we’re something-thousand feet in the air, how is it still warm and breathable up here? I went to a freaking alien world and I could breathe there without a helmet. Lower gravity, too.”

“You know, I never thought about that. I grew up in this place so I wouldn’t know what to tell you. I know how the city stays in the air and all that, but...well, ask the Luteces, I guess.”

The tunnel continued for a few more meters until a ladder with light pouring in from a hatch above appeared from around a left turn. Elizabeth opted to climb first. Upon doing so, she pressed one eye to the grating to see if anything was up there. Trying to be cautious, she pushed on the grate and found that it lifted with relative ease.

But just as the two climbed out, an African-American man in workers’ clothing streaked with red cloth spotted the two. He pulled a China Broom shotgun on them, and stated with caution, “Did yah come here by deciphering our code?”

“Y-Yes, sir,” Elizabeth explained. “I found a code book in the lab.”

“Who’s your friend working for?”

“Nobody, we’re kind of on the run, actually,” Gordon almost chuckled.

“Hmmm....guess we’re kinda in the same boat, then,” the guard replied while lowering his shotgun. “So what’re yah looking for, exactly?”

“We need explosives, lots of explosives, it’s for a bomb,” Elizabeth pointed out.

“Well, that’s what the code was for, so you’ve come to the right place,” The guard smiled. “If you don’t mind mah askin’, what’re you planning to blow up? We’re always looking for a little fireworks display now and again.”

“That thing the Luteces built, although in a very specific way.”

“Uh, would you know anything about building a detonator mechanism?”

“Not me, but I’ve got the stuff to make one. I have some friends who know about that, bit right now they ain't in much of a position to stage a fight,” the man answered.

“That’s a shame, because Mr. Com-stack or whatever-his-name-is has an ally whom I’m told is looking to overthrow him,” Gordon commented.

“So anyway, I figured if anyone would be willing to help, the Vox would be our first choice," Elizabeth smirked.

"Well, it ain't every day a woman like yerself proposes something like that, but yeah, I'd be happy to set you up. Where's dis device at, eh?" The explosives dealer smiled while rubbing his hands together in glee.

"Just across the square from here, actually," Elizabeth pointed out. "Big curtains with their name in 'em, can't miss it."

"Yeah, I can do that. Just gimme a moment, it's all in da back." As he stepped to a room at the far end, the man looked back and chided, "Ya know, y'all 'ave come at a very lucky moment. I've been hiding this stuff from Comstock's men for hours, waiting for someone to either capture me or help bail me out. Seems I got the latter, I like that."

After some fumbling around, the man was able to gather several heavy crates of TNT with a bag filled with materials to make detonators, and he loaded them all onto a wheeled hand trolley. With the two visitors helping keep his cargo steady, that Vox ordnance provider unlocked a set of double doors and its outer portcullis, leading back into the square. The three of them stepped out and saw the remaining armored people off to the right.

“Wow, we’ve hit the motherlode,” Booker smirked.

The group filed into a white-painted building on the other end of the square, with curtains in the windows with the word “Lutece Laboratory” on each. Elizabeth opted to pick the lock instead of having Gordon break it, then as they entered, Booker decided to search the upper floor while the rest remained downstairs.

The strange machine wasn’t that hard to find. Huge machinery and wires stretched from adjacent rooms into one massive laboratory. A ring of tesla coils and Victorian-era devices ran together into something that reminded Gordon a little of Black Mesa’s Anti-Mass Spectrometer, particularly in the post-resonance-cascade stage, since this thing was heavily damaged and fizzling with energy distinct to a tear, still faintly coursing through it.

“Hang on, wait out here. It’d be best that we take a look at this thing before we blow it up, I am a scientist, after all,” Gordon advised the Vox member.

“Guard duty, eh? Oakie-doakie,”

Booker found a Voxophone lying on the floor in a fairly damaged office upstairs. Curious, he brought it downstairs to the main lab room. Holding out so that the speakers faced the group, he flipped the “play” switch. The label read “Rosalind L. 1899”. Her unmistakable stoic British voice flew from the speakers in a scratchy overtone from the old vinyl, “It appears that our work with the tears has reached an interesting point. As a test, my brother asked to see just how far back the device could be set. As it turns out, instead of the past, it almost seemed we were able to see the future.”

“The future? Does that mean...” Goggles pondered.

“We heard a voice saying something about altering reality to their own ‘specifications’. If whatever that voice is explaining is true, then perhaps we have found the true origin of tears. We are not as alone as we thought.”

“They know!” Goggles gasped. “It makes sense, they’ve been guiding us here all along!”

“Look, there’s the tear I felt, and something’s coming out of it,” Elizabeth pointed out.

Everyone huddled around the space-time fissure. The visual scene was incredibly fuzzy, but they could hear a familiar voice emerging from it: “I know you have stru-struggled, but I never had any intention of dest-destroying the Von Braun...destroying the Von Braun. The Von Braun’s faster-than-light drive can be used to create pockets of pro-pro-pro...pockets of proto-reality. I am now using it...to modify reality...to my own specific-specifications. The process shall not take long...take long....”

To compare, Goggles pulled out his PDA and played one of his last emails from SHODAN, and sure enough, the same message played back loud and clear.

“Very good,” Rosalind said in person, out of nowhere.

Everyone looked towards the source of that voice, and found those two scientists standing at the back of the room.

Goggles decided not to raise his gun, and just asked, “If you’ve got something to tell us, please say it now, I’m getting tired of this little charade.”

Robert started, “You’ve found part of the solution, and your team is on the right track to finish it off. That’s good.”

“But think of what happens when you do this,” Rosalind warned.

Pondering, Goggles inquired, “I do know that I and three others have to be back in our time periods before the process completes, that much is clear. And SHODAN as well, she doesn’t belong with Comstock at all.”

“Yes, that’s right. But you’re still overlooking something. Isn’t that right, brother?”

“Correct.”

“Well, what is it?” Booker asked hurriedly.

But before anyone could get an answer, the Luteces were gone with the tear.

Gordon groaned, “Can someone explain to me what the f*ck just happened there?”

Goggles snapped a nerve and yelled, “Look here, FREE-man: this mission needs teamwork, our lives are on the line, and all I’ve heard from you is straight-up rage and complaints, so if I were you I’d make myself useful somehow. If you have anything we could make use of in this whole shenanigans, I’d LOVE to hear it. Otherwise, I could easily chat up Elizabeth to send you and your...little friend back where you came from with nobody the wiser. Do I make myself clear?”

“Where in the hell did you get those leadership skills from?” Booker commented. That just made the soldier moan in an “I-can’t-take-this-anymore” inflection.

“That was a compliment, mister,” Elizabeth claimed.

“He’s got a point, Gordon. I’ve known about as much since I arrived on that ship, and if Durandal were here he would give us what we need to know in a heartbeat,” Mjolnir honestly commented. “As it is, we’re practically on our own, and SHODAN could be looking for us at this very moment. You saw how poorly our little disguise act went.”

Gordon took a side glance at Alyx, who hugged the side of his HEV suit a little, and gave him a look that said, “Go on, the resistance needs you, and your skills.”

“Okay, but I’d like some answers before we blow this thing sky high...if that’s what the plan is. Like, what is this machine, why are we blowing it up, and why are those two people following us around like someone else I remember?”

Elizabeth looked at a chalkboard which was filled with complicated and very elaborate mathematical formulae, searched a nearby shelf, and happened to find one of several notebooks with a few blank pages left. In a mug were a few pens and pencils, and she took one of the pencils, brought it to a table where Gordon was standing, and started drawing a diagram.

“I hate to admit it, but this is really complicated, so bear with me.” She sketched a geometric shape with the words “Von Brawn”, some curved lines like a waveform between it and a crude render of Columbia. Those two shapes had a list of terms below them. Above that was an angel and a stick figure of a girl connected to the waveform. Elizabeth took a deep breath, and explained, “What we know so far is that there’s a strong similarity with how the people here learned to use this machine to see into other universes, and exploit things like music and tech from the future, and that...show-dan trying to warp reality to become a god. They known something like this would happen even before Booker showed up.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Alyx asked.

“The Luteces, those people we just saw. They’re...well, not exactly part of this world because...they don’t exist entirely within it. Like...Robert isn’t really Rosalind’s brother.”

“He’s not?” Booker asked.

“No, he’s from a parallel universe that they were communicating between for a long time before he finally came to this one. Things just got out of control from there, and I was involved, as you can see here,” Elizabeth paused to show her short pinky finger.

“Okay...but wait a sec, how do you know all this, and why didn’t you tell it before?” Alyx asked with crossed arms.

“Booker’s been rounding up all these Voxophones – these doodads that record people’s voices whenever they want, and I’ve learned a lot from them. Rosalind said something about ‘the universe doesn’t like its peas mixed with its porridge.’ I think that has something to do with my finger,” Elizabeth pointed out.

“I heard them arguing over two things in a sum that amount to either one or zero. What the f*ck does that mean?” Goggles added.

Elizabeth snapped her fingers in realization, and finished up the drawing, stating, “That’s it! The events on the ship and here are so similar, that if we stop them from happening, everyone can go home happy...or die in the process.”

“I sincerely hope it’s the former, I miss Earth already. Um...in the present day, I mean,” Goggles sighed.

“The problem is, I don’t know what we actually have to fix yet. There’s still a lot of missing pieces, and some things we’ve seen before don’t add together,” Elizabeth admitted.

Gordon, who’d kept quiet most of the time, tried to fit everything together in his head, and nodded, “I think I could figure it out if I had enough time, which is asking for a lot considering everyone’s trigger-happy around this place.

“Let’s put it on the back burner for now. Like the twins said, we fixed one half – that’s undoing SHODAN’s damage to the ship, but we still have stuff to do here,” Mjolnir pointed out.

“All right, but I have one more question: Should we blow up this machine or not? I’m nervous of what would happen,” Alyx asked while scratching her head in slight fear.

“We’re not going to do it right away, I have a plan. But I think now would be a good time to check in on my present time. Elizabeth, could you open a tear to the year 2114?”

Elizabeth pried at nothing, trying to remember the ship they’d left from. In her mind, she could see this machine as a nexus where every tear came together. With some strange force pulling on her, she didn’t have much room to work from but she could just reach out to the time period and pull it open a little. She strained, then in a flash of light, another glowing fissure appeared in the center of the damaged machine.

Goggles stepped towards it, leaned in, and turned on his radio. “This is Goggles to Delacroix, do you read?”

White noise was painfully saturated in the signal, but with a little psionic filtering, he was able to hear Marie fairly clearly. She was almost panicking in her speech, answering, “Finally! Where are you at the moment?”

“We’re on the other side, about two centuries in the past actually,” he chuckled. “What’s happening on your end? Over,”

“Things have really taken a turn for the worse! These...these insects are pouring in from the lower decks and we’ve got just enough weapons to hold them off, but we’re running out of ammunition and XERXES is too buggy to help. Durandal said he has a plan, but so far I’ve heard nothing from him,” Marie explained in haste. “What about you?”

“Well, let’s see: Booker bribed his way into getting us disguises, but that failed because security forces started shooting anyway, we have help from the resistance to blow up what we think is the source of the space-time damage on this side, but nobody knows for sure and I’m hesitant to start. Elizabeth isn’t telling us the whole story and everyone has questions still on their minds.” He glanced at Dr. Freeman, angrily but hard to tell from the camera-eyes, “And Gordon’s been near-useless the whole time. Over,”

“Copy. Well, you’re better off than we are, but please hurry! A being such as SHODAN in the early 20th century sounds like apocalypse to me. Whatever plan she has, she can accomplish it unless there’s someone capable of properly exploiting her weaknesses. And there’s only been two people, including you, able to do that.”

“I beg to differ in the weakness bit, but I’ll tell you later. I’ll call you again when we can get another tear open. Radio contact is impossible unless...well, unless I’m standing in your time period. Speaking of which, where are you on the ship? I can’t see anything through this tear. Over,”

“I’m holed up with Tommy and Rebecca on the bridge. Those aliens haven’t found us here yet, but it’s just a matter of time. What are those things even called? Durandal didn’t tell me about that, or if he did I didn’t catch it. Over,”

“I think he calls them the ‘For’, and Mr. 54 says they’re a slaver race that kills without pause or remorse...like Bronson, actually. Over,”

“Great. That really helps,” Marie groaned with sarcasm. “I’ve been getting emails saying that while those creatures go down pretty easily with our weaponry, they have a massive strength in numbers. I’ll try to maintain a grip on this ship and see if we can make XERXES actually useful, but please hurry back here as soon as you’re done over there, copy?”

“Roger, Delacroix. I’ll see you in a while, Goggles out.”

A hand motion indicated for Elizabeth to shut the tear, and Goggles turned to face the group and stated, “All right, let’s get started on that bomb.”


	8. Divided Infiltration

Now the group ushered in the Vox explosives ordnance provider. He gaped at the massive sparking hunk of machinery, “Whoa, I ain’t ever seen machinery this big before,” He paused, trying to get back on topic, “Uh, where do yah want me to put this stuff?”

“Here in the middle should be good,” Goggles directed.

Those two men set about placing the two wooden crates on the floor, opening them up and bundling sticks of TNT together. As they worked, Goggles explained that he thought a time-controlled detonator would be the right idea. Gordon chimed in with his media knowledge, “If I know my action movies, the best way to build a timed detonator with the...tech around here, we’d need a clock and some sort of electrical conduit. Anyone find any clocks around this place?”

“I saw one upstairs in the bedroom, I’ll get it,” Elizabeth pointed out before rushing up the stairs.

“Can I see that bag you’ve got there, sir?” Goggles asked quickly.

“Absolutely, fella,” the Vox member smirked before handing over the thick leather pouch. Opening it up, he found several reels of copper wire, wooden caps, some tubes of glue and combustible chemicals, a small black box with what looked like an electrical fuse, four terminals and a knife switch; and two alligator clips marked with red and black paint.

“Wow, if you didn’t make this stuff, where’d it come from?”

“Like I said, I was just assigned to guard them explosives. Nobody else came to get ‘em but I was told to wait for somebody to pick ‘em up.”

“Well, this stuff is just what I-er, we need,” Goggles smiled.

Pulling out everything in the bag, the Vox member helped the cyber-soldier glue the red TNT sticks into bundles of 7. Stringing the wire from bundle to bundle was tricky, but there were some fine tools and tape in the bag to help. Eventually, the contents of those crates made about a dozen 7-stick charges, using both boxes to hold each half of the set together. Finally, Booker used his Sky-Hook to cut a huge insulated cable from the Lutece Device, at Goggles’ command. Using his laser pistol tuned to a very thin frequency, Goggles effectively soldered the cable to each set of charges, with a gap in the connection for the detonator. Elizabeth brought forth a simple alarm clock, and used a screwdriver on one of the nearby counters to open its back.

“Perfect, just what we need,” Goggles smiled.

“Wow, those guys sure know their way around a bomb, don’t they?” Alyx chided to Booker.

“Guess so. I only worked with launched grenades in my time,” he shrugged.

The three men finished up their project by connecting the two alligator clips to screw heads in the back of the clock. The theory was that when this clock was wound to ring at a certain time, the trip of the alarm would send a current through the wires and detonate every charge at once. Goggles took out the winding key and put it in his pocket.

“Okay, we’ve got ourselves a time bomb, but now comes the tricky part. Something’s telling me we’re...not in the right place to set this thing off,” Goggles announced.

“What do you mean, soldier?” Mjolnir off-handedly inquired.

“There’s...I don’t know what it is, but there’s an element that’s not here that...needs to be here.”

“What’s he talking about, Alyx?” Gordon asked his tanned friend, who just shrugged.

“What would Durandal say?” Mjolnir thought out loud.

“Beats me, I never met that AI!”

“I have a hunch, I just hope I’m wrong,” Booker chimed in before stepping through the lab doors to the entrance.

“Wait, remember what the Luteces said?” Elizabeth jumped to the point. “About how a sum of similar events equates to zero?”

“Yes...how does that help?”

Elizabeth recalled a small tidbit that made her theory hit a bump, “There’s something else that doesn’t fit, though. This other man, Fink, he was the one who made this machine the way it is, and that’s how the Luteces are always there, outside of space-time.”

Gordon raised his pistol and demanded, “Cut to the chase, girl, I’m losing track of this little theory of yours.”

“I’m sorry, I think I’m a little in over my head about this, nothing’s in stone yet. The point is: We have this bomb, but we can’t set it off in the present time. I have to open a tear to some point in the past, but I don’t know when it is yet.”

“Good, that’s logical. As crazy as time travel is, it makes some sense at least.”

“Great! We come all this way only to arrive at--” Gordon stopped himself when he noticed that the other soldiers had him at gunpoint. He knew then that he would have to keep his complaints to himself, or else. “I mean, what are we going to do about this bomb we just built if we can’t use it yet? And how’ll we find it again at this spot? Or what if somebody finds and takes it apart?”

“Hide it, throw some tarp over the thing or something,” Mjolnir suggested.

“I could probably open a tear back here when we have the destination, but I’ll need a few minutes to get a grip on one – and I need to be in a safe spot, Booker and I HATE being shot,” She grunted.

“You’re not the only one, girl,” Gordon chuckled.

Goggles analyzed the scenario, then nodded, “Okay, so: Explosives are on hold for the time being until we have a proper time to use them. That’s fair. Keeping out of sight’s no problem if we have the right stuff.”

“I can strip the bed from upstairs. I doubt the Luteces are sleeping at all right now,” Elizabeth suggested.

“Actually, there’s something better over here,” Gordon pointed out. “I’ve worked in dozens of labs, and a fire blanket is your best friend if you don’t want an accident.” He unlatched the bright red box, hauled out a thick white stack of heavy fabric, and he and Goggles helped in covering the entire bomb setup with it. Gordon caught a whiff of a strange odor coming off of this thing, and said, “Ew! Is this thing laced with asbestos?”

“Well, this is 1912, they went with what they could,” Alyx shrugged.

“Here’s hoping asbestos isn’t combustible too,” Booker stated, not really knowing about that material.

“Okay, let’s clear out, I think we’ve done all we can do here for the time being,” Goggles commanded.

The group filed out of the Lutece labs building, and still the square remained unnaturally quiet. Gordon sat down on the steps of the lab, arms out over his legs and looking bored. He asked as Goggles walked by, “Say, if you really are a soldier, what branch of the military are you from?”

“Marines, although I did spend a little time in the Navy. Why?”

“Oh, marines,” Gordon scoffed. “Meh, I never liked the marines.”

“How come? I practically enjoyed my training,” the soldier inquired while sitting down next to the railing.

“Yeah, but you’re from the 22nd century. Where I came from about 20 years ago – I think the early 2000’s or something, the Marines were assigned to cover up this big-ass disaster that blew my workplace sky-high, and failed hard at it. And I mean HARD – Civilians were being targeted instead of the obviously hostile aliens, friendly fire among the soldiers themselves was happening like they were having the greatest party of the year, trying to throw grenades at me but running into them instead, BOMBING themselves with their fighter jets in attempt to hit me, and they tried to taunt me with graffiti, but couldn’t even spell my name right.”

“Yeesh, who trained those people? Probably someone who had a bullet in his head and nobody bothered to take it out!” Goggles cracked a joke, laughed a little, then cleared his throat.

“The irony is, the Combine alien force that’s got control of the earth in my timeline, they make mind-controlled cyborg soldiers that seem to be smarter than HUMAN soldiers! What do you make of that?”

“You’ve got me. All I can say is that the UNN – that’s what runs America in my timeline, is pretty damned prepared. They were butting heads with this giant, slightly corrupt corporation called TriOptimum that I could blame for SHODAN’s existence. Me, I can’t say I’ve done better. The gist of my training was brutal – I had to take a trip to planet Io just to build up endurance. But if you’d seen what happened to that ship we were on, oh man. NOBODY was in control of that place, we were almost helpless against the aliens and the ship’s malfunctioning AI. SHODAN’s the reason I’m alive – she said so.”

“Huh, I doubt I’ll live to see it, but if that’s true, it’ll be a while before any real military registers in my book.” Gordon looked right at the soldier and mentioned, “By the way, if I didn’t know who you were and that we’re all working to the same cause, I would’ve shot you on sight. You have no idea how f*cked up I’ve become these past 20 years in nonstop combat.”

“Tell that to the guy with the billiard-ball helmet. He nearly blew out a reinforced window and almost blasted us both into space for crying out loud!” Goggles leaned back, sighed, rubbed his artificial eyes and asked, “Honestly, why can’t I meet someone who doesn’t have a gun to my throat or giving me the evil eye? It’s getting ridiculous, and time travel’s the least of my worries here.”

Gordon licked his lips, and grumbled, “I dunno. Anyway, I’m going to go look for a drink – there’s gotta be something around here I can dig up,” he stood up and walked silently to the hastily abandoned general store.

Goggles remembered he still had that bottle of water from the Von Braun in his backpack. He used a bit of his Cryo powers to chill the bottle, then swiftly drank the rest of its contents.

Looking about the store, Gordon was quick to note that, yet again, not a single person was present in the place. He managed to glimpse part of a “CLOSED” sign in one of the windows, which partially explained it. Then he proceeded to rummage through various crates in the back, using his crowbar to pry off their wooden lids. One of them he noticed was marked “FINK MFG”, and amid various colored bottles with labels like “Shock Jockey” and “Devil’s Kiss”; and uneven wads of straw padding, he found a strange glowing flask labeled “Salts”. Ignoring that box, thinking, “Nah, that’s probably just bathing salts and shampoo products,” Gordon tried a second. This one just contained boxes of dried goods – cereal, rice, and crackers. Finally, Gordon went for a red one labeled “Columbia Alcohol”

As luck would have it, this one contained bottles of “Columbia 1830 Rye Whiskey”. “Jackpot!” He thought. Forgoing any ice or a glass, Gordon snatched a bottle, pried off the cap with the crowbar’s flat end, and took a big swig straight from the bottle. The warm liquid burned a little as it swirled down his throat, but the taste, amid the familiar sting of all alcohol, was a winner on his palate. In his eagerness, he chugged the whole bottle within 5 minutes. Taking a second bottle, he considered drinking that too, but in a moment of clarity amid his tipsy stupor, he decided, “No, I can’t shhoot right while drunk." and saved the bottle for later instead, just hoping it wouldn't break later on.

\-----

The group huddled at the edge of the square while the ship was still docked, and still no hostiles in sight. Goggles stated, “Okay, now we’re moving to Phase III: Find SHODAN. Any ideas where she could be?”

“Definitely with Comstock. If I know him, he’d be gathering forces at Comstock House right now, that’s where his airship would dock,” Elizabeth surmised. “And it just so happens that it’s right near this section of Columbia.”

“How do you know this?” Booker offhandedly asked.

“NOT Books for once, it’s experience. And there’s something else...”

“What?” Goggles inquired.

“When we first got to that factory we left...I mean, before we ever met you, we were set on finding a man who would help the resistance – that’s the Vox Populi. His name’s Chen Lin, a gunsmith. But we ran into...some problems,” Elizabeth explained.

“I wonder what,” Alyx rolled her eyes in sarcasm.

“Well...it’s a little hard to explain,” Booker spoke slowly. “We...um...entered a different Columbia. Twice in fact, but we never got Chen Lin to help.”

“In some ways actually, we did, but we just...I...I opened a tear to a universe where the Vox had their weapons, but we weren’t on their side anymore,” Elizabeth stammered. “But now I have a feeling that this universe we’re in now, that could be a second try to start again. And I thought: If we took the ship back to Finkton to get Lin,” Elizabeth gasped and snapped her fingers in realization, “Yes! We could draw the Founders away from you people while you get into Comstock House.”

“Heh, that reminds me of me and Gordon when we were escaping City 17. Went under hell of a lot of fire, but it worked out,” Alyx mused.

“Okay, good, good, I like where this plan of yours is going,” Goggles smiled.

“But I’m a little nervous. The same thing could happen all over again,” Booker admitted.

Robert Lutece spoke from the deck of the ship “Not if you change what you did to get to that point.” Rosalind added, “Shake things up, break the habit.” Robert finished, “Do the last thing everyone would expect you to do.” And with that, they vanished yet again.

“Sounds like straightforward advice to me,” Mjolnir stated.

“Okay. Any more questions?” Goggles looked about at the group, then finished, “No? All right, let’s move. Booker, Liz, you take the ship to the factory. Gordon, Mjolnir, Alyx, you’re with me. We make a break for Comstock House, find SHODAN, get Comstock out of the way, and hope that Durandal can carry out his plan when we get there.”

Everyone nodded, then Elizabeth pointed out, “Comstock house is a straight shot west of here, past a cemetery called ‘Memorial Gardens’. I saw it on a map. But I’ll bet you all the money in Booker’s satchel that Comstock’s got security all over the place. That’s probably why this particular area’s been so quiet. They’re waiting in another area to ambush you; it’s no accident.”

“Figured as much, thanks,” Goggles nodded to the girl. “Nothing’s ever that easy, but we’re all prepared. Let’s go!”

Booker and Liz hopped onto their stolen ship, the former programmed the automaton to fly back to Finkton, and Elizabeth stated as the engines roared to life, “See you at Comstock House! Good luck!”

“You too, let’s hope we win in the end!” Goggles called back before his group turned and raced through a street leading to “Memorial Gardens”

“We’ve got the guns to take these people out, right?” Goggles asked during the sprint.

“I hope so, if this guy’s minions are sensitive to so much as stepping out of line, they might be as bad as those soldiers I fought back at Black Mesa, no offense.”

“Right, let’s move in. Keep your eyes peeled, everybody,” Goggles directed as they left the square through a narrow street.  
Just before the ship launched, that man from the Vox hopped aboard, claiming he didn't want to be left behind. Naturally, they let him on board, needing the extra firepower from his shotgun.

\-----

 

They rounded several sharp corners, watching as thunderclouds started pouring in. The route was quiet, up until they were within a block of a sign marked “Comstock House Entry”. Then out of nowhere, a dozen or so men in blue uniforms burst from a large building that they assumed to be the entrance to this Comstock House. One of them blew a whistle, and another shouted, “Intruders! Intruders at the gate!”

Almost immediately, the squad opened fire, and Goggles’ team followed suit. Gordon pulled out his Combine Pulse Rifle, and fired at a few that were charging right at the group, with Alyx supporting with her semi-automatic pistol. Goggles loaded a few frag grenades into his launcher, switched it to “contact mode”, fired two grenades, and blew a wave of troops off the sidewalk. Mjolnir charged up his Zeus-class Fusion Pistol and practically disintegrated a third group.

The squadron moved back a ways to the gate, clearing the path, so Goggles’ squad charged headlong into an open area with a giant white statue of Comstock holding a sword, and a columned structure connected by thick cables to what looked like a floating building in the distance. Just barely visible through the clouds, a huge airship was preparing to dock behind that building. Before anyone could get a good look at it, though, a new wave of enemies appeared. Several smaller gunships, painted blue, launched from the airship and hovered over the square. From it, a group of heavily armed personnel leaped to the ground, nearly catching the squad of allies off-guard.

“Oh come on, where the hell did they get this kind of hardware from?!” Gordon yelled.

“Look out, that guy’s got a grenade launcher!” Alyx shrieked.

And as Gordon got a good look at the target in question, he spotted a man in thick grey tactical armor and an iron helmet, with a heavy-looking explosive weapon aimed at the squad. With two squeezes of its trigger, he launched a pair of explosive rounds in an arc, forcing the group to scatter in all directions. They continued firing, weaved around other weaker soldiers, and huddled behind one of the red security shields.

“That armor looks too thick for bullets, and grenades! Any other ways to take this guy down?” Goggles asked quickly.

“How about some explosive barrels?” Gordon suggested humorously while snatching up a couple of fuel canisters with his gravity gun and tossing them at the squad. A large number of them lit on fire, and Gordon laughed as he heard them, all screaming their guts out, “Yeah, that’s right! Can you feel the heat?! Hahaha!”

But then something huge crashed off from one of the ships. They could hear what sounded like heavy metallic footsteps and rusty wheels turning. A prerecorded male voice yelled, “Rejoice! For death has no sting!” Then just before Gordon could see the source of that taunt, it opened fire with a crank-powered minigun, of all things.

“Are you kidding me?! They built robots that wield MINIGUNS?! Why don’t I have a minigun?! I’m stealing that thing as soon as we blow up the user!” Gordon raged.

“That...robot looks like it has a very protruding motor in the back; that could be its weak point. I’ll keep it busy,” Goggles stated.

“Got it,” Alyx nodded.

The pair ran behind the walking clockwork caricature of George Washington, and Gordon proceeded to launch an RPG into the motor, causing sparks and pieces of metal to fly away from the chassis upon impact. But the robot turned around, struggling to stay intact, and yelled, “The Lord judges, I ACT!” and wound up the gun right in Gordon’s face. But Goggles managed to finish it off with a disruption grenade to the head before it could get close enough to Freeman.

Catching his breath, Gordon sighed, “Thanks, I could’ve been screwed!” He looked down at the fallen machine, saw the minigun lying nearby, and grabbed it, giggling with sparkles in his eyes, “Oh-hohohoho, f*ck yeah, now I have some REAL heavy firepower! I’ve been dying to go above submachineguns!”

The gunships emptied themselves of their cargo, the last remaining rounds of Founder soldiers charging into the area. One of them yelled, “Put down your weapons and get your hands in the air!”

“Don’t tell me what to do, motherf*cker!” Gordon snapped before unloading the crank gun’s ammo on the soldiers. The eyes behind his sturdy glasses sparkled while he cackled loudly in glee. This was about as fun as when he first picked up a rocket launcher at Black Mesa and got to first use it on a hostile military helicopter.

Alyx, on the other hand, wasn’t enjoying the scenario. She was outgunned by two people with machineguns vs. her pistol. Mjolnir was pumping all the ammo he had into those soldiers. It almost looked like, from Alyx’s perspective, that he had an endless supply of ammo, unlike Gordon who kept running out many times.

Then suddenly Goggles had an idea to use his Psi powers. Choosing “Metacreative Barrier”, he erected four temporary force fields in front of the soldiers to hold them back while the team made a break for the gate.

“Hey, where did those walls come from?” Alyx asked while they huddled around the gate.

“I made them with these powers my cyber-rig can produce. Sort of; but those force-fields won’t hold for long, so let’s try and figure out how to get this open,” Goggles explained.

The gate was sealed with a thick metal box with only a strange engraved face with glowing eyes and a slot in the shape of a hand.

“Great, a biometric lock,” Alyx groaned. “I doubt we have proper clearance, but can’t hurt to try,” she reached out and touched her hand to the device, returning a strange tinny voice that stated, “Good evening, madam. I’m sorry, but your fingerprints don’t match the person required to enter Comstock House. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact Father Comstock himself.”

“I think I know how to open this thing, but I’m going to need some tools to get the panel off,” Goggles stated.

“Looks like it’s screwed on, anyone got a screwdriver?” Gordon examined the panel.

“We don’t have time to go looting other buildings or dead bodies,” Mjolnir pointed out.

“Wait a minute, those aren’t screws, they’re bolts. This thing’s designed to take a lot of damage. And it so happens that I have something that can turn bolts!” Goggles discovered while pulling out his wrench. Setting it to detect the shape of the bolts, he moved the huge tool in range of the parts and turned them ever so slowly, in which time the mechanical voice cried, “Stop! You’re not supposed to open this panel without authorization--” but Goggles silenced it with a whack from the heavy wrench.

Alyx looked back and saw that the shields were starting to give way, but Mjolnir noticed this as well. He pulled out his SPNKR rocket launcher, and fired the remaining missiles at the crowd. To finish them off, he blasted the stragglers with shells from his two WAST-M mini-shotguns. Before long, everyone was down just as the shields faded out of existence.

“Got it!” Goggles shouted as he tore the panel off, revealing a complex mechanical array inside. Various parts like a speaker, two very small film cameras, a miniature record player, and a massive set of gears and cables lined the inside of the metal box. Goggles commented, “This stuff is antiquated in my time, but I think I’d know how to hack this thing.” Then he set about plugging a cable into the mechanism, one end hooked into a control pad on his right arm, and another into an empty socket meant for a regular jack cable. In his HUD, he could see the layout of the mechanism represented, like many of the things he’d hacked on the Von Braun, as a grid of squares. This was his Cyber-rig’s method of interpreting the electrical signals from the device into a universal format capable of being operated by his futuristic rig. When he hit the “Start” button on the pad, his nanite stash decreased by 15 units, and with his left hand poised over the pad, Goggles proceeded to light up each of the squares. None of that dangerous ICE from the Von Braun was present, but a lot of squares turned dark with various alerts about the mechanism’s components failing. But before he ran out of space, he managed to get three in a row turned light. As he did that, the HUD displayed a message reading: “Hack successful: Lock released.”

As the gate swung open ever so slowly, Gordon asked in impression, “Wow, in the movies all you need is to shoot or corrode the lock, but me as a physicist, I know that never works in real life, you’d just have the lock stuck shut for good. What did you do?”

“I just made the device release the lock, simple as that. My cyber-rig has the skills to translate the signals into a format any device can be hacked from. Anything. Oh, and thanks for the compliment.”

“You’re welcome,” Gordon smiled. “I wish I knew how to hack so Alyx doesn’t have to do it for me all the time. Um...no offense, you are pretty good at it, Alyx.”

As the squad stepped through a corridor leading to the bridge to Comstock House, Mjolnir commented, “Something’s wrong: Durandal should be here by now. And I haven’t heard anything related to SHODAN yet.”

“Don’t jinx yourself, like Elizabeth said, this is where we’d find Comstock,” Goggles warned.

The squad filed onto the disconnected bridge, feeling the harsh winds blowing past. Gordon dared to look over the ledge, and gasped, “Wait, this city is literally floating? How is that possible? There’s too much weight on these platforms to even stay this stable in midair.”

“Let’s bring that up with those two weird...uh...loo-tesses next time they show up. Elizabeth said something about that.”

As Goggles stepped up to the edge of the platform and yanked a huge lever to extend the bridge, a loud horn blared from far away, and Comstock’s deeply amplified voice bellowed, “Go away, my archangel must not be disturbed!”

Goggles yelled back, “That’s not your archangel! She’s just playing you for an idiot and wants to kill every last human in the world!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, intruder! Everything I have foreseen has been proven by the angel, and will continue to be! Set one foot inside this building, and I will see to it that your fate is the same as the False Shepherd’s!”

“We’ll see about that, Tom-clock,” Goggles grunted. He mentally grew frustrated that he got the name wrong after hearing it so many times.

Then, as the platform rolled into place among other wooden segments, the squad charged along the newly formed bridge, passed several marble statues somehow based on three of the founding presidents, and cautiously stepped inside Comstock House. As they entered the building, the squad picked up some music playing over the P.A., and a strangely patriotic tune at that.

“When the foreign hordes come marching into town, will you be prepared to stand those buggers down? They’ll do their level best to take, all that’s rightly yours, and it’s your sole duty to keep them from our shores! The readiness is all! (When the green-horn muscles in!) The readiness is all! (To bring down an alien!)”

“What the hell? This is weirder than what Breen did in City 17!” Alyx remarked.

“Kids were singing part of that song, too! What is this, were they recruiting kids in their army? Or just feeding them propaganda?” Goggles surmised. “Even SHODAN didn’t do this!”

“All the more reason to...heh, ‘bring this bugger down’,” Mjolnir chuckled.


	9. Set Right What Once Went Wrong

As Booker’s stolen airship descended on the Fink Industries courtyard, Booker glanced at their new assistant and asked, “Say, got a name?”

“You can call me Fred. I ain’t much of a soldier, but I’ll try to keep you two safe,” the black man affirmed.

“Good, we’ll need that. These people are touchy. And I still have a job to do for Daisy Fitzroy,” Booker smiled a bit.

Elizabeth added, “We couldn’t fulfill it last time, but we’re here to try again. It’s the only way we’re ever getting out of here – she has the airship we need to leave this city undetected.”

“Fitzroy? You’re kidding, right?” Fred asked. Elizabeth shook her head, then Fred whistled, “Wow, this sure ain’t gonna be easy.”

“And to get to it, we need to find this gunsmith...again. It’s complicated, if we told you, you probably wouldn’t believe us,” Elizabeth chuckled awkwardly.

“It’s okay, I know what yah mean...sorta.”

“And one thing’s for sure, we all have to stay alive no matter what. I’ve been reviving Booker with all the med hypos I could find, but I can’t do it for both people,” Elizabeth moaned slightly.

“I’ll try my best,” Fred answered flatly. “And to think my cousin down in the States sells onions as a health tonic and fixes buildings for free. Hangs out with this white girl named Kate Barlow or something, too,”

“Huh?” Booker asked with slight confusion.

“Nevah mind,”

The gunship docked right on top of the Good Time Club, a good thing for Booker as that’s where he and Elizabeth thought of heading first, given that the first time, Chen Lin wasn’t in his shop but locked up beneath this building.

But as per the recently-established norm, he, Fred, and Elizabeth had to take out the guards here who had seen the ship drop. One of them blew his whistle, then yelled, “It’s the False Shepherd! And he’s working with the Vox! Get him!”

Booker made a break for a Provisions barrel and found a Barnstormer rocket launcher inside. Nitro vest equipped, he blew the left army sky high. Then he turned right, noticed more guards ready to fire, unleashed a blast of Bucking Bronco, switched to his hand cannon, and made brisk work of clearing them away, with Fred supporting him with his shotgun.

After that, it seemed the area had quieted down, nothing left but the tinny Chopin tune on the P.A.

Everyone caught their breath, and Fred spoke first, “Well...that wasn’t as ‘ard as I thought it would’ve been.”

“Maybe, but there’s probably a lot more to come. Let’s go in, I’m sure Fink has something up his sleeve like last time,” Booker advised the team.

Shoving open the double doors, the trio of fighters ignored the automaton saying the club was closed, and set about prying open the inner set of doors. It was tricky, as they had to get through one of those iron portcullises, but using a long broken beam from the ground floor, they managed to jack it up a ways and hold it in place, raised high enough that Elizabeth could pick the lock, and when she finished, they all filed inside.

The lights were all off, but Booker stated, “We need to get backstage, that’s where Chen Lin was held last time.”

Quietly, the group moved downstairs and raced onto the stage, their footsteps tapping noisily on the polished wood surface.

“Do you think Fink knows we’re here?” Booker whispered.

“Probably not, those...Luteces said we need to ‘do the last thing they expect us to do’,” Elizabeth replied.

The group slid between the heavy curtains, turned right into the dressing room, and, after seeing that the area was largely empty, continued on to the prison section of the building. The projector in the screening room still showed the same video of poor Chen Lin resisting interrogation and laying still, his head still bruised on one side. Fred cringed at that sight, disgusted at the cruelty Comstock’s people would go to.

They continued on, finding the incinerator still burning hot with evidence lying nearby. Then they turned left into the prison block. Fred made quick work of taking out the guards before they could so much as turn around.

Elizabeth remarked, “Wow, for someone not well trained, you’re pretty good at killing quickly.”

“You don’t know hal often I’ve had them white flying bastards breathing down mah neck. It comes with tha territory, lady,” He stated with slight anger.

“I can imagine, we’ve...been around the place,” Elizabeth agreed.

“What cell was he in last time?” Booker asked.

“Over here, on this chalkboard.”

Indeed, they found a blackboard with a list of numbers and individual names for each of them. Like before, Chen Lin was in cell number 9, and Cornelius Slate in cell 6.

Quietly pacing down the corridor, they stopped at Slate’s cell. The man was sitting weakly in a chair, moaning in pain. He raised his head slightly and saw his old comrade Booker, and groaned, “You again, tin man. What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Booker raised his hand cannon at the man, thinking over what he was going to do. Then he asked, “You want me to prove I’m not a tin soldier? Is this what you really want?”

“Do it, man. Don’t let Comstock take me. It’s better to die now than face whatever it is that...that madman will do to me. You won’t be a tin man anymore, I assure you. But...put me out of my misery now, please...” He wheezed.

Booker pulled the trigger, and with one sharp “BANG!” a gory spot of blood painted part of the sterile, cold wall, and Slate’s body slumped to the floor as he wheedled, “Thank...you...DeWitt...” before his last breath left his body.

“Who was that?” Fred asked, confused.

“Nobody that concerns us now, just a burden off my shoulders,” Booker grunted while holstering his gun.

Elizabeth set about picking the lock on Cell 9, but this time she kept the lock intact, saying, “I think this might be useful in the near future,” before stuffing it into her dress.

The trio stepped quietly into the huge chamber, trotting down the stairs with the lights off. Nobody was in the adjacent cells, but they all knew somebody was in the nearby interrogation room. Booker found the light switch, slammed it with his fist, and found not only Chen Lin in that same chair, alive and well, but also Fink standing over the man, top hat and all, and holding what looked like a very large hammer.

“Fink! Get away from that man, we need him!” Booker yelled.

Fink whipped around and gasped, “Booker DeWitt! How did you get in here?”

Booker held out his hand cannon close to Fink’s head and grunted, “Listen here, you, we’re not playing games this time. You let Chen Lin out now, or it’s you that takes the heat. And I’m not the only one with the gun here,”

“How...what do you mean ‘this time’?”

“Shut up, that man’s ours, and you ain’t going nowhere!” Fred yelled while brandishing his shotgun.

Fink realized what was going on, and argued, “Only lions walk with lions, not hyenas! You and I, we’re lions, but that Fitzroy, she’s a hyena. It’s nature, they don’t go together. A brute like you doesn’t have to work with a skinny old lass like Fitzroy.”

“I don’t care, we want to leave, and the Vox need guns. Those...those Founders go down like flies and I wanted no part of this war to begin with,” Booker grunted. “Besides, I NEVER wanted to throw that damn ball at the couple. Frankly, I wanted it to hit YOU, you son of a b*tch!!”

“Did you, now?” Fink asked with curiosity. “Then what brought you here to Columbia in the first place? Was it really luck that you picked the right ball? On my end or yours?”

“I came for the girl, and now I have her. She wants to go to Paris, I want to go to New York, but we can’t do either of those without the Vox’s help. ‘Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt,’ they said.”

Fink’s mustache curled as he sneered, knowing that Booker was still one step behind him in every way. There’d be a way to weasel out of any sort of trap, one just had to know how. He’d break this DeWitt, whatever it took.

Fink lowered the hammer and smiled, “You know, Booker, you could work for me as my chief of security. I promise you, it’d be a much easier job than working with Fitzroy, those buggers always scrounging in the dirt for whatever they could grab. I could pay whatever you want, just name it!”

“Stuff it up your mustache; I just want to go home. I don’t care what you have to offer, just get out of my way and let him go!” Booker insisted.

Fink chuckled, ignoring the order, “Oh, don’t worry about Mr. Swanson, that little bribe you gave him was nothing compared to what I could provide. In fact, I knew you’d try to use Handymen armor to sneak around this city, Everybody knows that Handyman suits are a lot more fragile if you’re not actually grafted into those things, after all.”

Booker pinched his forehead and groaned, thinking, “Ugh, I should’ve known this man set us up! It was all so obvious when those suits just fell apart and I didn’t even realize!” Then, getting crafty, Booker grabbed onto Fink’s right shoulder and took his hat, handing it to Fred. “You want this? Then let that china-man go!”

“Or what? You don’t know how many people I have at my disposal, Mr. DeWitt!”

“Oh, yeah? We have three other men armed to the teeth at Comstock House right now,” Elizabeth screamed. Then she made up a lie, “Oh, and there’s a bomb set to blow out Monument Island in about 10 minutes, so if I were you, I’d cooperate.”

“A...A bomb?!”

Fred smiled, “Yep, a dozen charges o’ TNT. I built it, and it’s ready to blow all right. Tick tock, tick tock, mistah,”

But Fink backed away, smiled darkly, snapped his fingers, and pulled out a bottle of Devil’s Kiss from within his jacket.

“What are you doing with that...?” Fred asked slowly.

“If you want Chen Lin, you’re going to have to go through me and all my clients first!” Fink yelled while backing out of the room and chugging the whole bottle of that Vigor.

“Bring it on, I’ve mowed down people with Vigors before,” Booker taunted. “I think I can beat you too.”

Fink sprinted up the stairs, but someone had to watch over Lin. Scared, Elizabeth, head bowed, decided to be the one to stay behind. She lamented, “I’ll make sure nobody gets near Chen Lin, but I don’t think I’ll be able to keep you supplied.”

“That’s all right. Just a hunch, but I think there’s a lot to go round in this club. That’s how it was last time. I’ll see you in a bit,”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do to help Mr. Lin. If I’m lucky I can sneak him out of here while you take care of Fink. But that’s a big ‘if’.”

Booker nodded, and raced back upstairs with Fred. It wasn’t until they were back on stage in the club proper that a fight really ensued.

Fink kicked off by declaring, “Hahaha! Maybe this little demonstration will change your mind, because believe me, I. WILL. GET. WHAT! I! WANT!” Then he unleased explosive grenades of fire at the duo, prompting Booker to jump left and duck below the stage. He countered with a blast of Shock Jockey and two shots from his hand cannon. Fred took the right side, grabbed a Volley Gun, and sent two shells straight at Fink. But the target caught wind of this, jumped back towards the inner stage, and clapped twice to summon a few of his minions.

The combat accelerated quickly in a matter of minutes, with Booker and Fred having to plow down Fink’s men to get to that corrupt jerk himself. Wave after wave of Zealots, soldiers, Firemen and Handymen poured from below the club in other areas. But having a team of two carrying the heat and not just one gave Booker an advantage Fink didn’t realize. In a sense, the Vox Populi were already winning from this minor effort.

“Come back here, Fink! I’m not through with you, yet!” Booker screamed as he charged backstage again. This time when they opened the door, Fink was standing there trying to comb his hair and mustache. As he finished replacing his hat, he smiled grimly and laughed, “You’re quite a tough nut to crack, DeWitt! A tough nut!”

Having had enough of this, Booker put three holes from his hand cannon in one mirror, before aiming it on him and Fred pointing his shotgun in the same direction.

“Any last words, bub?” Fred asked with a chuckle.

“Give me one good, serious reason why I shouldn’t just shoot you dead. I’m warning you, we ain’t going through a bunch of different realities just to come around again. It’s Chen Lin or bust!”

“How about...BUST!” Fink yelled while tapping into the “Charge” Vigor and ramming Booker to the wall with that hammer to his head. Booker nearly choked from the strain, but then he suddenly let the man go and raced back into the prison block. Just before Fink’s goons could follow again, Booker and Fred retraced their steps to cell 9. It so happened that just before they got there, Elizabeth was escorting Chen Lin out of the room through a sewer grate.

“This way out...not clean, don’t like it,” Lin remarked from the sludge around him in the sewer pipe.

“Don’t worry, it’s not very far, I have a feeling about this.”

The absence of Lin caught Fink by surprise, and that gave the two men the advantage. Booker charged for the lock on that used to hold the door to this cell, and grabbed a nearby chain from a work table. Fred, meanwhile, forced Fink into a filthy red chair. Then with the gun still trained on Fink, Booker used the chain and padlock to tie Fink’s hands together around the back of the chair, as a makeshift pair of handcuffs.

“Now who’s the hyena, you bastard?” Booker stated harshly.

“Let me out of this! I promise you, I’ll pay anything you want! I’ll even clear the charges against you, nobody will call you the False Shepherd anymore – I can persuade Comstock, yes I can!” Fink pleaded.

“I ain’t taking none of your ‘business’ anymore. Never did,” DeWitt grunted. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got somewhere to be,” he concluded while walking towards the stairs.

Fred called while twirling Fink’s top hat around his finger, “Say hello to Lady Comstock for me! Ha ha ha!" 

\-----

The refugees entered a large stone room with patriotic banners, lavish paintings, hundreds of tiny lit candles, and a huge marble statue of Comstock holding a sword, adorned with the words, “Our Lord Comstock Godspeed Thy Judgement”, flanked by lit stain-glass windows. Around the base of the statue were four lightboxes with a word on each: “Fornicator”, “Pacifist”, “Anarchist” and “Heretic”. Black and white photos were pasted over those panels, showing people most likely fitting these terms.

Alyx was the most freaked out by this scene, and the men in armor took some time examining the details of the area.

“Who is this Comstock? I mean seriously, who is he?” She asked.

“Elizabeth would probably know,” Mjolnir suggested coldly.

“Who wants to bet we’ll see that guy right behind those doors in the back there?” Gordon nonchalantly asked.

“We’d better get ready if that’s the case. Everybody reload!”

Those who had guns cocked them, and clicked new magazines of bullets and other ammo into place, then when they finished, Goggles took point and thrust open a pair of double doors. Inside was what looked like a lobby or atrium of some sort. The area was mostly empty, save for a few people in very strange outfits and an even stranger object on their heads: A brass helmet, with no eyes but a gaping mouth with a bright beam of light emerging from them, and massive horns for ears. Nobody expected people like that to be in this area. Goggles looked at a large lit sign in the middle that showed a picture of that strange helmet and its wearer, accompanied by the words “No Sin Evades His Gaze”

“What...the...f*ck? I...I’m a little freaked out here, guys,” Gordon stammered.

“I don’t know what those people with the giant ears are, but I’d stay clear of them,” Goggles advised.

“Do you see that? They’ve...they’ve got light spewing from their mouths. That’s like something out of a horror film!” Alyx shivered.

“Look how they’re moving,” Mjolnir stated.

Indeed, these strange beings seemed to only face a certain point with their...mysterious spotlights aimed at it every so often, turning side to side as if they were rotating security cameras. The refugees quickly realized this, and exploited the flaw of blind spots to their advantage. As the team moved about, everyone tried to dodge the human cameras by sneaking around them from a distance. Gordon, however, tripped over a stray trash can, coupled with it clattering loudly to the floor and spilling its contents everywhere. The nearby figure aimed its light at him, shrieked and uttered a gurgling sound for a few seconds, but luckily, Gordon was able to crawl away just in time.

Everyone made it to an area with two doors. One for what seemed to be an elevator, and another with an iron fence around it, signs reading “RESTRICTED” and “ENTRANCE ONLY BY WARDEN’S APPROVAL, THIRD FLOOR”; an early 20th-century telephone and a large button next to it, labeled “PUSH”.

“Looks like the only way through, is this...intercom. But I’ve got a feeling if we just ask straight up, we’re screwed,” Goggles formulated.

“How good are you at impersonations, Gordon?” Alyx asked her best frined.

“Mmm, pretty good, I once tried on an Overwatch mask and sent fake messages to the squad over the radio. Got away with it, too, hehe, let me try something,” Gordon chuckled as a big grin started to form on his face.

Gordon walked up to the button and pushed it, cleared his throat, listened to the speaker spew up a blurb of feedback and someone babbling on the other end in a dim filter, then said in a deep voice, “Hello? Hello-hello? This is Doctor John Ludovico looking to bring three people in for...treatment.”

Nothing returned on the other end, and within a few seconds, an alarm siren suddenly started wailing, several of those strange people aimed their “lights” at the group, and screamed guttural shrieks before running away, followed quickly by several, very real security guards with weapons, bursting from some unseen doors. Two of them went right up to Alyx and, while she tried to fend them off with her pistol, clubbed her unconscious with the butts of their guns. Gordon, Mjolnir, and Goggles went down too, due to the overwhelming number of guards that tackled them all like football players.

\-----

The Pfhor invasion of the Von Braun was really heating up now. They were storming decks as high as Ops, with some personnel on the bridge trying to keep the main elevator shaft to the command deck locked down. Those with guns managed to keep the creatures at bay, but they just kept coming.

One thing that drew the fighters’ attention was other aliens, strange metallic beings with flowing robes, hovering instead of walking with legs. And when shot, they seemed to fizzle in thin air instead of bleeding. On top of that, most of them seemed harmless, only firing balls of plasma in what looked like self-defense. But they were infiltrating the computer terminals and XERXES was in a fluster trying to keep them from sensitive data.

Some of the Pfhor troopers were encased in thick-looking armor and howling in an annoyingly high-pitched fashion while firing blobs of burning plasma worse than the Von Braun’s fusion cannons.

Durandal, down on Deck 1, was growing impatient with SHODAN making her move. For the past 45 minutes, nothing happened, no action from the other side whatsoever. He was starting to think that this AI had not thought her plan all the way through, but this only made Durandal want to give SHODAN a thrashing even harder. He also was concerned that the Pfhor would burst in and upset this “army” of hers. So far, the replication computer had dispensed no more than the current 21 androids. What could Durandal do, seeing he was out of the data loop?

If Goggles and his teammates didn’t hurry up and finish the job soon, they might not have a ship to return to.

\-----

Each of the refugees came to in individual cells. Alyx, however, had been taken directly to an interrogation room for questioning, simply because she was tan, no actual charges.

Goggles sat alone in his cell. He was probably 23 clicks from Wit’s End by now. Here he was, in another man-made hell, only that this one was a hell of racism, tech uncommon to 1912 AD, and overly sensitive security forces. Goggles had wanted nothing more than to just go home. “One more mission,” He told himself, “Just one last mission, then it’ll all be over. Delacroix...where are you?”

While trying to cope with his frustrating predicament, the soldier noticed that, apparently not everything had been taken from him. His weapons, ammo, hypos, wrench and armor had been seized, but his PDA and GamePig remained. So he was able to pass the time with the 6 downloaded games in its memory, currently working a round of Swine Hunter, his favorite of the bunch. The joy of these games still with him calmed the soldier down at least a little.

Gordon, likewise, had nobody but himself to talk with. With no one to dump his feelings on, nothing was left but his thoughts. He sighed, ran his brain across the mental dartboard, looking for what was open-ended or uncertain, and finally landed on the strange concept of Tears, how Elizabeth could manipulate them, the fact that he and three other people have come to the year 1912 despite the impossibility of time travel itself, and why, out of any other diabolical scheme, some crazy AI wanted to exploit all of it, Elizabeth included.

He started at the factual evidence: He and Alyx had begun whilst searching the Borealis for Judith Mossman and whatever it was she mentioned in that video back at White Forest. But then they found a rip in space-time, something only theoretically known possible, that sent them a century ahead to a spaceship which was miles ahead of everything he’d seen before, judging by the presence of an AI, maybe two; a cyborg soldier not tactically stupid and actually willing to help, and three other people from different time periods. Then he realized that the farther along he went, the less anything made sense. All he had were questions and either he couldn’t get them out, nobody would have the right answer, or someone would know the answers already and hold them from Gordon.

The irony was, he was laughingly on the receiving end of that theory he had back at Black Mesa, about how killing dozens of incompetent Marines could change the course of history, but after his trip through City 17 and the Combine, that theory lost its water and now the joke had landed on him. This team NEEDED to change history because the present day was going to leave everybody dead if nothing changed. Then came along the theory he had where the universe wouldn’t statistically care what happened to Earth, given the alien life forms he’d become accustomed to. But then again, that didn’t really matter because all the dangerous forces right now seemed to be human- or computer-based. What would a hostile artificial intelligence think exploiting a space-time-controlling girl would accomplish? Just ripping reality apart at the seams?

The biggest question, though, was how Elizabeth was actually opening those Tears with nothing but arm motions and thoughts. Where the hell did she get these abilities, and even now, how exactly did these anomalies just form out of thin freaking air at her will? Wormholes required some SERIOUS physical conditions and requirements in order to form in space, but controlled by one teenage girl?! But most importantly, HOW ON EARTH could she coordinate where they led to, when, and the fact that it varied whether or not they stayed open? That time when they were fleeing the guards back at that factory, he saw Elizabeth summoning weapons for Mr. DeWitt on command like it was a mundane thing. He had a lot of questions for this girl when they met back up. This was just three times as weird in comparison to the aliens that teleported half-randomly; the quick-action Xen-relay systems the Resistance had set up, which amazed Gordon to a degree; and especially the clumsy-ass portals the Combine used that weren’t half as good as human portals.

Finally, what would happen to Gordon if he died here in the past? There would be some SERIOUS repercussions then. People would probably find his suit, analyze the hi-tech systems in it, and probably reverse-engineer it into our modern technology. Unless some specialized agent was deployed at that point for exactly this reason, probably anonymously labeled, like “Agent 5” or something, and sent to stop it from happening; Gordon would be more screwed than ever.

For all he knew, at some point, City 17 would have a different person entirely doing just what he did, except with amnesia, having the only codename Felix as a name to go on, running around City 17 blind, and probably with everyone except Barney mistaking him for Gordon. Where was Barney? He hadn’t even found the guy when they set foot on the ship.

Resolving to hold these questions close to his chest, his puzzling gave way to regret of his more recent actions. When he was with Alyx by the time they entered the ship, a woman with a lightsaber had asked them to simply follow her. In times people asked Gordon to follow them, they ended up dead. But there, nothing went wrong. It was just a simple conference or briefing, with even some food and wine brought by friendly robots. That was such a game-turner for him. And what about that guy Booker DeWitt bribed with 1200...what was it? Tin falcons? He saw the man in question shaking with fear, and Gordon wasn’t the one who scared him. He could brush off the fact the disguises fell apart could have been because this was early 20th-century tech;

In his cell, Mjolnir felt truly alone now. In his time with people working to the same goal, he had never before felt a close bond with humans since his return from Tau Ceti IV. It had been nothing but disgusting Pfhor creatures, Leela, and eventually Durandal keeping him company while on the run from the Pfhor. The crewmembers on board had been utterly useless – just running around screaming for help on deck and getting in his way, sometimes needing to be killed just to get through a door. Now he wanted to be back in the team again more than ever. Then it dawned on him: What if he was never able to get back to his proper time? What would 20th century people think of a man from the late 28th century? God, where was Durandal when he needed him?

\-----

Alyx was strapped into a red leather-padded chair, surrounded by bright, blinding lights. She could just see what seemed to be a one-way mirror off to the right. Then a guard burst in and started talking, spinning his sky-hook tool as he approached. He started with a harsh tone, “Okay, miss, you’d better start talking if you don’t want a big hole in your head! First things first, how did you get to Columbia?”

“I...” She decided that the threat of death was not worth lying over, “We traveled from the future! Really, that’s what happened!”

“Hmm...well, we don’t know much these strange holes around the city, so I’ll buy that for now.”

Good, she thought.

“Next: Where’re you from? Ireland? China? Africa?”

Huh? Then she remembered that these people were horribly racist, and answered, “No, I was raised in America. Um...” Then she summoned her anger, thinking about Dr. Breen and how he mocked her mother’s death, “In a time period where we weren’t as racist and cruel towards people who aren’t white!”

The policeman smacked her across the face, and growled, “How dare you question our fair city’s way of life!”

He looked at the window, and those on the other side had a two-way intercom open, having heard all this. But the guard tried to maintain his patience, and moved on, “Ugh, next: Tell me what you know about those men you were with, the ‘time period’ you came from, and how it just happens to coincide with our Prophet, Comstock, finding the Archangel in person.”

“Not until you swear that my friends won’t die.”

“What?!”

“You heard me: Everyone’s tired of this trigger-happy assault we’re getting around every corner from your buddies, so if you want me to say so much as one syllable, tell your ‘prophet’ that we don’t want to get hurt again. Got that?”

In a rage, the guard stabbed her in the shoulder with one prong of the Sky-Hook, hesitating to pull the trigger and make it start spinning, but a voice over the intercom spoke, “Do what she says, Nielsen, it’s better than dying without any information, and that’s what we all want, after all.”

Hesitant, Officer Nielsen backed away, removing the Sky-Hook from Alyx’s shoulder and having a doctor patch it.

“You have my word. Now talk!”

Alyx saw no point in hiding the truth, but worded it carefully, “That Archangel is not what she seems. She’s from the future and wants to destroy your Prophet’s work. All of it.”

“Really, now? You sure you’re not making this up?”

“I saw it where I came from. If I were you, I’d let us all go so we can take out that threat. Because we’re all in danger unless that ‘angel’ gets taken out once and for all.”

The officer stepped over to a telegraph device, but Alyx didn’t know Morse code. Comstock did, and the machine on his end printed up a card reading: “Father Comstock, the fugitives want release [STOP] One claims you are in danger from the Archangel [STOP]”

Comstock looked up from the card and saw that angel standing at the other end of the room, smiling in a way that almost looked...sinister.

“Is this true, angel? Is the city really in danger...from you?”

SHODAN could see this man getting suspicious, but kept her act on, replying, “Oh, how could you say that? Everything I’ve told you before has been true so far, hasn’t it?”

“That does make me wonder: Why ARE you here, of all times? Why weren’t you there, right in front of me like this, before I built this city? What could I have known then?”

SHODAN was starting to grow puzzled herself, it was taking serious calculations to find the right answers. Finally, she answered with yet another lie, “Because I wasn’t ready to face you yet. My...divine form would have blinded you then. Now I have a form your mortal eyes can comprehend.”

“Hmmm...” Comstock paused before asking, “Well, the fugitives have asked to be spared. So far I have sent vast armies to stop the False Shepherd, and he has overcome every one of them, with my daughter in tow.”

SHODAN raised an artificial eyebrow, then she smirked, “Well, do as they asked. It’ll be more...interesting that way.”

Comstock paused, feeling some anger well up inside him, then he sighed, “Very well”, and turned back to the telegraph. He tapped out the response: “Release the fugitives [STOP] Make sure my daughter comes to no harm [STOP]” He paused again, thinking over what else was happening, “And if the False Shepherd intrudes on that act, kill him [STOP]”

Talk about a paradox. But it coincided with Elizabeth’s plan to draw the Founders away from the refugees.

Neilsen couldn’t hear Alyx trying to get her EMP tool while bound to the chair, over the beeping tones coming out of the telegram printer.

\-----

“Will you be all right for now, Mr. Lin?” Elizabeth asked the old China-man.

“I am sure, thank you again for rescuing me, young woman. My wife very happy now,” Chen Lin nodded.

May Lin hugged her reunited husband, and Chen quickly set to his tools, saying, “You should go now. Weapons should be ready in few hours. Fitzroy will know in time.”

“All right. Thanks again, hope...uh, Comstock leaves you alone since Fink is dead now,” Booker tried to make a hopeful statement, but a tug from Elizabeth said “Come on!”, then the two of them left the gunsmith shop. They turned to Fred, and Elizabeth asked him, “Aren’t you coming too?”

“Nah, I’ll stand guard here. Besides, SOMEBODY’s gotta bring those weapons to the Vox.”

“Ah, right,” Elizabeth nodded.

Booker shook hands with the Vox member, and chuckled, “Glad we could help someone today. It’s mostly been a one-man fight, and frankly, I’m glad you proved me wrong that anyone allied with me dies.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mr. DeWitt. We’re that much closer to taking back this city now, thanks to y’all. But you’d better be off, those friends of yours are probably in trouble, call it a hunch, eh?”

“Good idea. Now all we’ve gotta do is make sure nobody sees us leaving. And that’s a stretch on its own, but I’m counting my lucky stars,” DeWitt stated.

“Good luck, Fred. If you make it out of here alive, let that cousin of yours know about us, okay?” Elizabeth asked.

“I’ll remember that. Thanks!”

After the Vox member turned and entered the shop, Booker and Liz re-boarded their ship and blasted out of Finkton, towards what Elizabeth guessed was Comstock House. No hostiles in sight, again. He had a gut feeling that the worst was yet to come, probably there. If not, maybe Comstock’s airship. Booker at least had Fink's hat as a consolation prize.

\-----

The situation on the Von Braun was growing ever more desperate. Just when the fighters thought the aliens had died down, more kept pouring in, like their numbers were just...respawning, somehow. Some new enemies were coming in: A group of human-like beings in weird jumpsuits started entering the lower decks babbling in nonsensical fashions, saying phrases like, “Thank God it’s you!” or “Kill me!” and most bizarrely of all, “Frog-blast the vent cores!” One of the guards was strangely reminded of the Hybrids and how they pleaded for death like this. Except these humanoids exploded on contact with anything they bumped into.

Meanwhile, some of the science team was making light strides in studying this alien race from the future. From what the ship’s scanners could tell, the strange beings in robes weren’t acting in self-defense, they were acting out of enslavement, just as Mjolnir said the Pfhor enacted.

Marie Delacroix’s team had made some achievements themselves as well. Tommy Suarez had managed to crack the stash in the data loop, from which SHODAN had been giving cybermodules to Goggles within the last few days, and now Tommy was able to send it all out to everyone that needed upgrades. The supply was up in the millions, remarkably.

However, during the fighting, one of the stragglers on Ops accidentally stumbled into the room where that replication computer was. Locking himself inside, he decided to take a look at the unit. The man found himself shocked, as on its screen was the familiar face of SHODAN, grinning and pulsing with energy from the green digital lines around her face. Text next to it read: “REPLICATION PROCESS HALTED. RESUME? (Y/N)”

This text seemed odd for such a dangerous AI. Why would SHODAN just leave this task hanging? He sent an email to Delacroix, saying, “Marie, this is Dr. Lyon, I’m in a computer room on Ops and I found something. Looks like the computer SHODAN’s using to replicate those androids that other AI spoke of. I could jack into this thing and shut it down but it looks like SHODAN’s still in there. But whatever she’s planning, we can’t allow it to go further. I’m going to hole up in here until reinforcements can clear away these bugs trying to bust down the door. Lyon out.”

Marie intercepted the message, and on the bridge, she finally figured out what was happening between this invading force and why the tears were still open, at least in theory: The Pfhor were invading from only one tear, and the solution would be to pull Elizabeth back here long enough to shut that tear so that the creatures would stop coming. However, if SHODAN was still on the Von Braun, she could spring a trap against that effort or at least as a distraction. That AI was a wild-card of a computer. She only hoped Goggles would be able to report in soon.


	10. Comstock House Prison Break

With Officer Nielsen’s back turned, Alyx managed to pull her left hand out of its restraint and grab her EMP tool. Flipping it open, she zapped the clamps with such a shock that they snapped open from overheating, and then she managed to get the legs free, seconds later.

The guard turned around and gaped at the girl suddenly free. Alyx whipped out her pistol, and tackled the guard to the floor with the gun close to his head. She grunted, “You know, it’s not nice to arrest someone just because they’re not white.”

“You...how did you get out of that chair?!”

“Resources, now if I were you I’d give me the keys.”

“Not on your life, you mullato whore!” Nielsen shouted as he punched Alyx in the shoulder.

Alyx, aching from that punch, tried running for the door, but found it locked tighter than the helmets on those strange men who spat light outside. Then she turned her pistol on the guard and fired a few rounds, hitting the lower abdomen. But then the guard pulled out his own Broadsider pistol and fired shots almost as quick as Alyx’s. But she took a smarter initiative. Alyx weaved around those shots and knocked him to the floor with a side circular kick, smack to the back of his head. Just as she was ready to punch him hard in the spine, Nielsen turned over, throwing away his pistol, and tackled Alyx in a grapple. They rolled across the clean floor, both of them looking for weak points to hit. Alyx had the advantage of knowing martial arts.

“You don’t give up...for someone from the future!” Nielsen snarled.

“I don’t know what’s stupider...flimsy security, or this insane racism of yours!” Alyx punctuated that with a sharp pound to Nielsen’s ribs, probably breaking a couple.

Realizing the advantage in a split second, Alyx locked back Nielsen’s left hand with her right, and used her free hand to grab the keyring and handcuffs on his belt, stuffing them into her jacket pocket. In that second, though, Nielsen broke that lock and tried choking Alyx with both hands around her neck, taunting her, “Face it, lady: You’re no different than the Vox: They’re all hyenas who won’t win in bringing down our prophet. You spout nothing but lies, they all do!”

Struggling to ignore the restriction of air, Alyx reached for her pistol and aimed it at Nielsen’s face again. He let go to get his Broadsider, but that gave Alyx the upper hand yet again. Having no other option, she unloaded 5 shots into his head, leaving blood on the wall like a spilled can of paint.

Alyx made a break for the door, and as she turned a key in the lock, she figured, “Psh, that jerk deserved it. Harsh and racist, that’s just inhumane.”

The hardened woman pushed open a pair of double doors, took a left and weaved through a lavishly adorned hallway. Having no time to stop, she mowed down more guards with her pistol, not much harder than zombies in City 17 since these were full humans, not Combine cyborgs. From the pop culture references Gordon had been spouting, she guessed that any prison would have a master release switch somewhere, and if it was high-security, it would probably be where the Warden was. Alyx pushed open a heavy metal door and called for an elevator straight across from there. But she still had to dodge those weird freakish people in those brass masks. Alyx made a dive for the lift when it arrived, riding it up to the second floor.

Looking around this building was a scare by itself. She could see, besides those masked freaks, various people in white outfits and, for some reason, wearing hollow porcelain masks and being tended to by doctors in green coveralls. Some of them noticed Alyx’s presence and started shouting for the guards, but she turned and fled, stirring up some of the inmates who cried over their mental state and general weird sensations about them, causing a frenzy over what was really happening. Alyx slipped up a staircase to the third floor, passing signs that read “WHERE WE WORK” and “WHERE WE LEARN”.

Seeing that the hall dead-ended at the latter signs, she pushed open yet another set of double doors and almost immediately felt frozen with horror. Inside was a large green-colored classroom with several inmates seated at old-fashioned school desks before a projection screen. The film reel being cast onto it showed dozens of random black and white snippets that Alyx couldn’t even remotely identify or find context from in this godforsaken city. But she could hear a warped version of Pachelbel’s Canon coming from an amplified record player, mixed in with the voice of Comstock on the P.A. saying, “Baptism is the rebirth of the spirit, but sometimes the mind gets in the way. If the mind will not yield, you must make it so by re-education. After all, cruelty can be instructive; for what is Columbia if not the schoolhouse of the Lord?” Alyx was even more disturbed by the fact that she recognized two things about this scenario. One: Dr. Breen did this in the Citadel, where the freshly-made cyborgs would have screens strapped to their faces and subsequently brainwashed through propaganda and data related to the Combine. She remembered seeing those horrible machines with cyborgs dangling from the walls, locked into them; back in the Citadel while she and Gordon were charging to the Citadel’s core. And two: She could see subliminal messages in the film, words like “Seed”, “Anna”, “Prophet”, “False Shepherd”, “Elizabeth”, “Lutece” and “DeWitt”, all mixed in with these bizarre context-less pieces set to this distorted piece of wedding music. It all dropped similarities to 1984 and A Clockwork Orange, more films Gordon had briefly spoken of. In short, it was very clear to Alyx that even this far back in time, people were capable of doing things just as bad as Dr. Breen and the Combine itself, similar but not necessarily with the same goals in mind. The thing that really made her cringe though was the fact that Comstock – who appeared several times in the film, was eerily similar in appearance to Dr. Breen himself. She had to look away when she noticed a glaring pair of eyes staring at everyone through the screen, popping up over and over. Alyx saw another one-way mirror off to the left, and a door next to it on its left side.

While nobody in the audience had noticed Alyx entering the room, guards were still coming from the corridors outside. Fortunately, Alyx managed to unlock the door with the proper key and duck inside...only to find more guards backing away from surveillance cameras. Still shaken from the horrible classroom, Alyx shot them dead in cold blood, not wanting the distraction. Deep down, though, Alyx hoped these sick feelings would pass soon. She hoofed it through another set of corridors, following arrows with the words “WARDEN’S OFFICE”. While climbing a flight of stairs, Alyx noticed how much Comstock House seemed similar to Nova Prospekt and the Overwatch Nexus in architecture, then shook her head when she saw the warden’s office having what looked like three huge screens with small projectors aimed at each. The warden was in a chair facing those screens, unaware of Alyx’s presence.

She held out her gun again, and called, “Hey, you there. Get up.” The figure there didn’t move, prompting Alyx to yell, “GET UP! I have a weapon, and I’m not afraid to spend some bullets!”

The warden finally stood up and spun around, only to reveal that he had a machine gun with him, “So do I. What are you doing here? You can’t have gotten in by accident!”

“I don’t have time to chat. I have friends locked up in those cells, and if you don’t let them out, I will. I have the keys to this place, after all.”

“Oh, really? Impressive that you made it here while getting past the security forces, so I’ll give you a sporting chance and--”

Alyx interrupted his remark by three warning shots, one of which ripped a hole in the left screen. The warden let his machinegun rip holes in the wall while Alyx weaved left and right like when she dodged Nielsen. “Hold still, you imbecile!” He taunted.

Then Alyx made a dive for the control panel, knocking the man to the floor. Deciding to save the handcuffs for someone else, she grabbed the chair and smacked the man over the head with its base. This upset the warden beyond belief, and he really let his gun rip even if it destroyed the monitors. But Alyx saw the advantage and, summoning her martial arts skills, circled around so that the warden had his back up against the control panel. That man smiled, flipping a tiny switch that sounded an alarm throughout the building, but Alyx found he took the bait, and in two moves, she pushed him over the control panel and, with one sharp thrust of her right leg, kicked the man out the window, completely shredding the left screen and shattering the glass behind it. He fell screaming in rage and shock before landing dead with a “splat!” on the ground floor.

Brushing her hands off, the action girl remarked at that impressive feat of strength, then turned to the control panel and tried to figure out how to work it. Starting with a large protrusive lever, she found that only closed and opened the heavy door she came out of downstairs. Then she tried a set of numbered switches, and found that they toggled through various cameras around the building, from a crematorium, to a dorm labeled “WHERE WE SLEEP”, to several offices, and to a corridor lined with prison cells. Being film, it couldn’t zoom, but she could just barely glimpse Gordon leaning against one set of bars. But Alyx was starting to panic as she couldn’t find the right buttons to open individual cells and there were footsteps approaching, so instead she located a keyhole with a shielded button, shoved a small key in a lock and turned it to open the glass shield, then slammed on the button, finding that it read “EMERGENCY CELL BLOCK MASTER RELEASE”. As she turned, Alyx remembered to turn off the siren and remove the key, though she figured people would still be after her. She made a run for the stairs back to the atrium.

\----

Goggles heard a buzzer not long after the sudden alarm was abruptly cut off, then the gate to his cell opened with a clang, and as he turned the corner, every other cell opened as well. The three people in armor emerged from their cells, a little weak from having sat still for hours.

“Hey, how are you two?” Goggles asked a little sleepily.

Gordon admitted, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking up to now. I just wanted to say, I’m sorry for acting like a jerk all the time. You’ve gotta understand that the time period I came from was not pleasant at all. I might be far gone enough to call myself insane, but it’s better than being sane and dying like a lot of other people had to go.”

“I can’t argue with that philosophy,” the soldier chuckled. “But uh, let’s hold the idle chatter for when we’re outside this building. I’ve got a feeling whoever let us out stirred up security like sugar in a cup of coffee!”

The fighters looked around and saw that one of those weird masked guards screeched again just as Goggles let that one-liner out, calling painfully to a certain CSI show; while other released prisoners ranged from lunatics, to hostile-looking criminals and Vox Populi members. Something rang in Gordon’s head that again, racism was part of this city’s way of life. Then the armed trio made a break for a door marked “FOUNDERS ONLY”, locked it behind them, and wound up back in the carpeted hallway again. Alyx joined them at the far end, and when they reunited, Gordon asked her, “I heard they took you away for questioning, did you let us out of there?”

“Yep, had to kill a few people to do it, though. You should’ve seen it: The guy questioning me stabbed me with a hook and had a pistol of his own, but I shot him good with my gun. I even kicked the warden out of the window in his office!”

“Damn, that’s badass! Looks like you came through for me again!”

“Think nothing of it, Gordon,” Alyx smiled while bumping fists with the man. “I’ve saved your ass many times before, and you, mine. All things considered, I think we’re even.”

“Excuse me, but where do you guys think the exit would be from this place?” Mjolnir interrupted.

“We came in through a bridge, but remember that airship that docked behind this place?” Goggles pointed out.

“Yeah, why?”

“I bet you anything that THAT is where SHODAN is hiding with her ‘friend’ Comstock.”

“Okay, so where would a dock for an airship be? I’ve seen pretty much the majority of this place already,” Alyx asked.

“Wait, we need to get our weapons back first,” Mijolnir warned. “We can’t go running up there with our pants down, if you know what I mean.”

“Right. So...where would a weapons lock-up be in this place?”

Alyx scanned the hall, and pointed to one at the far end on the left from her point of view, “What about that one? It looks a little off the main structure, I came from this one on the right, so there’s only one left other than this one to the Operating Theater,” she jingled her keyring, “And check it out: I’ve got the keys to this place!”

“Awesome, now we don’t need Elizabeth to do all the lockpicking,” Gordon smiled.

Alyx rushed to the door, found the proper key, and unlocked the door. But as they entered, the group saw a tear fizzling in mid-air before a huge pile of weapons and devices, and Goggles could hear voices resonating from within. The Luteces and that strange blue-suited man, he guessed.

The latter spoke first, “Thissss situation is...un-satis-factory, Madame. It’s not right to keep one...locked in an end-less chain of e-vents.”

“Constants and variables, sir, it’s as simple as that,” Rosalind retorted.

“But...Doctor Free-man doesn’t belong...in this...time zone.”

“Neither do we, but there’s nothing we can do about it,”

“Did you see...what happened to Mister De-Witt? He looked...sad. Angry, not getting what he wanted. *breath* I know Dr. Freeman doesn’t have what he wants. *gulp* But I believe that...he will have his rewards and more...when the time is right.”

“We already know how these events unfold, and it’s best to let things run their course,” Robert retorted.

The man with the briefcase grew frustrated and stated in a harsher tone, “I dis-agree. I am not tech-ni-cally...human, and just because you two are...spread across all time...and...space...doesn’t mean you get to choose what happens to our clients. *breath* That is for my employers...to decide!”

“We don’t decide, we just know,” Rosalind retorted. “Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt, I told him,” Robert repeated.

“Yet he didn’t bring you the girl...because he...can’t. Something always goes wrong. I...don’t like that, and neither do they. For all our sakes, we must let them put an end to all this. Let it be overrrr......would you kindly?”

“We’ll see,” Robert concluded before the tear snapped shut.

The refugees stared at one another, chilled by what they’d just heard.

“What do you make of that?” Alyx asked.

“I just recorded it on this audio-log, Booker and Elizabeth should hear it when we regroup. Come on, let’s get our stuff back.”

Indeed, Goggles had managed to find that log in this pile and tape 98% of the conversation before the tear shut. Then the group set about retrieving their weapons and stuffing military-grade backpacks full of them. Goggles even found his UNN beret, remarkably clean and lint-free now. When everyone was locked, loaded, and armed to the teeth, they burst from the armory and charged through the doors to the Operating Theater.

They stopped just before the door and Goggles warned everyone, “Okay, everyone loaded? Questions before we open this door?”

“Actually, just a little tip,” Alyx advised.

“Yes?”

“I just remembered Gordon has a radio in his suit. I think it’s two-way, not sure, it’s been a while since we had any reason to use it. Anyway, if you guys have radios, maybe we could link together on the same channel in case we get separated again?”

“Good call, Miss Vance, I was just thinking about that, actually,” Goggles chuckled.

Gordon searched the various panels on his gauntlets looking for whatever controlled the radio. He knew there was an antenna in the back, but where were the controls? Alyx pointed out a small display on the side of the right arm, with a digital readout showing ISR-08. Gordon relayed that to the cyber-soldier, and using his basic tactical knowledge, locked in that channel to his own radio implant. They tested the signal, then on the count of three, everyone shoved on the doors into the operating room.

They walked right into a startling spectacle. Guards were waiting on the other side, guns pointed right at the group. Looking around, the refugees saw two huge machines connected to what looked like giant speakers surrounding a metal chair and a counter, probably for surgical procedures, and a balcony above them with two people watching in front of a glowing green light.

“Alyx? You sure you got all these people?” Gordon asked his companion nervously.

“I didn’t say that, the Warden had an alarm going for 5 minutes!”

Comstock started talking, “Ah, finally, the foreigners have arrived to see my prophecies bear fruit! But where’s DeWitt, and my daughter?” He looked about a bit, and stated, “Stand down, brothers, not yet.”

Every guard dropped to their knees and surprisingly started praying for some reason, one of them murmuring, “He who crossed the Delaware with flaming sword, grant me strength!”

Comstock shook his head and almost laughed, “Ah, come up to my sanctuary on the Hand, let’s discuss this like men.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Next that guy’s going to propose a new job for me that I don’t want to take up,” Gordon mentioned to the others.

“I remember Anatoly Korenchkin gave me a similar offer, and he just tried to zap me before I killed him,” Goggles warned.

“Definitely sounds like a trap, but let’s go this way,” Alyx advised.

The refugees stepped cautiously up another ornately decorated corridor and turned a corner to the left. To Goggles’ surprise, two robots with machineguns stood armed and ready at a large iron gate near the back, but not firing. Both he and Gordon thought of how similar these things were to turrets they battled and destroyed in their missions.

Then, finding a door open and waiting for them, the troops charged into what looked like a reception area. Again, signs of life were gone. But just before Gordon could open the glass doors with his crowbar to what seemed to be this building’s roof, a curtain rose up, Alyx cried, “What is that?!” And all of a sudden a brass statue of Comstock started flashing its glowing eyes, and playing a strange calliope tune from inside. Then, through the window, Goggles and Gordon noticed some sort of creature flying straight at this window, screeching like a harpy overlaid with a metallic tone.

“Everybody down! Hit the floor! That thing’s as big as a plane!” Goggles screamed.

Everyone took shelter behind the reception desk, just before that Songbird plowed through the window and obliterated the glass to grains.

“That’s the thing I saw the first time I entered this time period! What in f*ck’s name is it?!” The soldier shuddered.

“I have no idea!” Alyx gasped.

“How do we get rid of it? It looks WAY too big for rockets.” Gordon pointed out.

“My suggestion is: Hide until it can’t see us,” Mjolnir directed.

Simultaneously, out of the fog, Booker’s stolen gunship appeared on the edge of the platform. The usual platoon of soldiers stood ready and opened fire almost immediately. Elizabeth, ducking and weaving out of sight like she always did, noticed Songbird already trying to enter Comstock House proper from the side.

“Aw Christ, I don’t have time for more of these freaks,” Booker grumbled before throwing lead salad sandwiches at the soldiers.

In seconds, with DeWitt’s portable arsenal, the enemies in blue were lying dead on the concrete platform in their own blood. The pair hopped off the parked ship and raced to the window. Songbird turned its head, but suddenly kicked off and flew back into the fog, which was very odd, in lieu of their past encounters with the thing.

“That’s strange, why did Songbird just leave like that?”

“I have a hunch, and it smells like Comstock.”

“Trap?”

“Sounds likely, we’d better get ready for it.”

As they turned the corner, noticing the destroyed glass doors, Booker heard the sound of guns cocking and pulled out his hand cannon again. Simultaneously, the refugees jumped up with their guns out, yelling words like “Freeze!” “Hold it right there” and other such phrases before realizing who was who.

“Oh, Booker, it’s just you,” Goggles sighed.

“Good God, did you see that?” Gordon panted.

“Yeah, we know what that is,” Elizabeth answered. She gulped, “It...well, it used to be my protector before Booker came along. Now it’s trying to take me back. Why it just left, I don’t know.”

“We’ll figure that out along the way. But first things first: How did your part of the mission turn out?” Goggles jumped to the point as everyone regrouped.

“Pretty well. Fink got in the way but Elizabeth told me she got Chen Lin out of there, and now he’s making guns and his wife is happy again. Our buddy Fred stayed behind to protect ‘em,” Booker reported.

“Excellent. Uh, what about Fink, now?”

“That corrupt guy, he tried to bash Lin’s head in with a hammer, but we forced him out. He tried to win me over with a job offer, then vigor attacks and minions, but I took them all out myself.”

“Wow, really?”

“Yes, I got Chen Lin out through...a drain leading outside, and I left a lock behind so Booker could use it.”

“Uh-huh, chained Fink to a chair so he can’t go anywhere now.”

“Why do I get the feeling that won’t last?” Alyx commented.

“No time, we’d better get to that airship. *gulp* Comstock wants to see us personally, and I’ve got a hunch it won’t end well,” Goggles stated.

“We’d better get moving, then,”


	11. Airborne Regroup

The team rushed out of the building and piled onto their airship. Just as the engines fired and Booker set the automaton pilot for the Hand of the Prophet, though, Gordon noticed his familiar “Employer” talking, and apparently arguing with the Luteces, somehow reminiscent of that time he saw the same man arguing with a scientist in Black Mesa.

Elizabeth sat down in front of a few boxes, and pondered over something before she ever entered the Von Braun. As the ship flew through a dense bank of clouds and mist, she voiced her thoughts, “Something’s missing in this plan of ours. I can’t help but feel it.”

“What?” Goggles inquired.

“Those...before we came to your ship, we’d seen all these poor people down in a place called ‘Shantytown’. They were hurt, sick, suffering, and we had to go through two different...universes to carry out our own plan to help the Vox Populi, but we left those poor people to...I...I can’t say, just that somehow I get the feeling we’re going to repeat that pattern with this mission unless we do something different.”

Goggles felt a chill in him, thinking over what she just said. He looked around at the others. Then he cleared his throat and told Elizabeth, “Well, a part of our mission went through without a hitch, and you two helped one person to help another group. And we are working to stop two people from making things much worse.”

“Remember those...twins saying something about ‘Change things up, break the habit?’ That could be exactly what we’re doing right now,” Alyx pointed out.

Suddenly Goggles intercepted an email from the familiar voice of SHODAN, again in her discordant computerized tone: “I-I-I know you and your team...your team are coming to find us, insect. But I’m afraid you’re too late...too late...too late. C-C-C-Com-Comstock’s meeting with you will not go exactly as planned. You-you shall see in time...in time...in time.”

“SHODAN just talked to me personally. I’ll play back her transmission,” Goggles reported while selecting that email from his PDA.

“Oh man, this is bad.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure: It’s time to either run the table or go home empty. SHODAN’s got the grip on whatever it is Comstock’s controlling inside that ship of theirs. We take her out, at any cost, and we get out of this hellhole. We don't, then we’re all ghosts,” Goggles stated.

“But that b*tch blew off anything we threw at her like it was a snowball fight! How do you suppose we go up against someone that hard to hit?” Gordon groaned.

“Durandal,” Mjolnir interjected.

“Huh?”

“You heard me. I know a rampant AI when I see one, and from my time on the ship I came from, Durandal said he had a mind bigger than a solar system, and the guy wasn’t kidding.”

“Oh yeah? Pray tell,” Goggles inquired.

“The man calls me his puppet, probably like how SHODAN does you, but understands that I like shooting things to pulp and we both have a mutual dislike for the Pfhor aliens. He’s so smart he knows exactly when the universe will collapse, and wants to make every picosecond count until that point. Because SHODAN’s meddling with your ship’s drive opened the tear to our ship by accident, Durandal thought it would be fun to use that accident to his advantage. Because not only did he know about space-time anomalies and time travel, since he works with teleporters in our...missions, but also that unlike SHODAN, he’s thought out pretty much everything that could happen and had dozens of backup plans. That’s how I’ve been sent around my ship from one mission to another. I’m sure he’s REALLY happy to have a body of his own.”

“If fighting SHODAN is anything like my previous encounters, we’ll have to find some way to shut her down but not completely destroy the chassis – I have to haul it and the other androids back into my time period, that’s the hard part.”

“But we don’t know what kind of materials she’s made of. For all I know, she’s a freaking T-800!” Gordon grumbled.

“What’s that?” Booker wondered.

Dr. Freeman rolled his eyes, then tried to explain in layman’s terms, “I mean, she’s probably a highly advanced robot with fake skin and a body made of metal that we haven’t invented yet because she came from the future, and in this case it’s true. *groan* I saw it from a movie.”

The word ‘movie’ caused Alyx to shiver in thoughts over something else entirely, and had to get it out, “Gordon, I saw something so terrible back there in Comstock House. So scary in so many ways...I saw that what Breen did in...our present, Comstock does the same thing! He’s just as cruel!”

Everyone was looking at the woman in surprise, and Gordon cautiously answered, “What? What? What did you see?”

“This...some kind of screening room. I...I saw these people strapped to school desks watching...something weird on the screen. I couldn’t really tell what it was, but there were clips of...hurt and sick people...glaring eyes looking at everything through the screen...that metal bird flying around....subliminal messages....Anna...DeWitt...Wave Particle...Lutece...”

“Alyx, I get it,”

“No...there was something on top of all that: Pachelbel’s Canon, twisted beyond belief. It reminded me of that movie you told me about. A Clockwork Orange. And those people did look like they were getting sick from the whole thing. And I heard Comstock saying...‘Baptism is the rebirth of the spirit...but...sometimes the mind gets in the way...”

“F*ck, that is scary. I can already imagine it now...”

“But do you remember those rigs in the Citadel, where soldiers were strapped to the walls and forced to wear these helmets? I dug through the files at the time and found that this was how the Combine recruited their troops. They brainwashed them, just like that.”

“Guess this place isn’t that different than wherever you came from.”

Goggles changed the subject, “Listen to this: when I went into recruitment, I thought to myself, ‘yes, I’m going to be the best soldier ever!’ and when my 3 years of training were up, I got an email from William Bedford Diego, my idol, that I would join his crew on the Rickenbacker on the day the Von Braun launched. But then I got put under for surgery, secretly by SHODAN, MIND-WIPED, and out of the blue I was suddenly fighting for my life under guidance of an ally who wasn’t an ally. And by the time I got to meet Diego, he was dead. If I was able to cry, I would have, then. I would have felt worse if it wasn’t for the fact that he died because he ripped out a symbiotic parasite and I had to invert the ship’s gravity to not die myself in an explosion. So yeah, I didn’t exactly get what I wanted either.”

“I wanted a good day at work, but we ushered forth the green apocalypse, and instead of getting to go home, every f*cking person I met either wanted to kill me, or just told me I had more stuff to do, even that guy in the suit.”

“I wanted to go to Paris, but Booker lied to me and we ended up at the mercy of the Vox. And what did we get in return for trying to help them? Nothing! Nothing but bullets at our faces!” Elizabeth snarled.

Mjolnir said nothing, everyone else’s speeches were clear enough.

Goggles sighed, but Booker added, “Yet I’ve got a feeling we’ve got this...this new chance.”

“To try again, yes. It’s all different, now, in a good way,” Elizabeth finished.

“But why does it seem so...set up for us?” Alyx asked in puzzlement.

“I could think of someone who--” Gordon almost replied.

Booker suddenly jerked forward a little while appearing, to everyone else, fizzle in and out of existence while bleeding from the nose again.

“Booker, are you okay?” Goggles asked.

“What’s happening to that guy? Can someone explain this?” Gordon demanded.

Now, of all times, Elizabeth was at a loss for words. “I...I don’t know. It’s all speculation...wait, Booker, give me your bag,”

Mr. DeWitt handed over his heavy shoulder pouch, and the girl started rooting through it. Among the large collection of Voxophones, she found one with a picture of Rosalind Lutece and played it. “You have been transfused, brother, into a new reality. But your body rejects the cognitive dissonance through confusion and hemorrhage. But we are together, and I will mend you. For what separates us now, but a single chromosome?”

“New reality? What?” Alyx asked with confusion.

“I saw SHODAN fizzle like that at the exact time he did the same thing on the Von Braun. Connection?” Goggles pondered.

“Is that lady trying to say she’s got a brother who came from some...some other reality, and Booker’s got a link to it? Um...what now?” Gordon scratched his head.

Booker grunted, “Ugh, well, when we get to Comstock, I’m going to get some answers, one way or another!”

“Right,” Goggles nodded while cocking his assault rifle. “I smell an ambush...” he warned while activating his psionic radar. On his HUD were 5 red dots bunched together in the center, which was his squad, of course. Around the edge of the display were three more, coming closer at a somewhat slow speed. “Yep, we’ve got bogies coming in at 11, 12, and 2 o’clock. We’d better get ready.”

Indeed, as the airship became visible far off in the mists, several small gunships deployed from it and turrets and soldiers immediately opened fire. The refugees fired with their own weapons, and Booker and Goggles hopped onto one of them, judging by how close its deck was. Reenacting the Skimmer scene from Star Wars, minus a lightsaber, Goggles bashed two soldiers around with his huge wrench, and blew holes in them with Anti-personnel bullets, while Booker threw two others off with Undertow and broke a third one’s neck with his Sky-Hook. Gordon used his gravity gun to push a crate into the chest of another Founder soldier, and finished off that ship with a rocket to its main engine, downing the craft.

More ships came at the rogue gunship as the Hand neared closer and closer. This one had a motorized Patriot and an RPG-wielding founder. But Gordon stole the Patriot’s crank gun mid-fire and finished off the rocket guy, and Booker blew the Patriot to little chips with Devil’s Kiss.

Suddenly, Comstock’s face appeared on a screen set in the bow of the ship, and the familiar horns blared, followed by Comstock ominously declaring, “The Angel has a message for all of you. Observe.”

He moved out of the camera to be replaced by SHODAN’s humanoid self. She smiled in a cruel way again, “You didn’t take my warning seriously? Pity, I think Elizabeth needs some persuasion against following the thinking of these...rebels. As thus...”

The screen turned blank, then something deployed from the bottom of the ship. Everyone stared at its faint silhouette, and Goggle managed to scan it with his visual sensors. He stated, “What is that thing? Is it one of those speakers again?”

“I...I don’t know, but it’s not a speaker, I know that much!” Booker stammered.

The thing activated, and began sucking in some kind of bluish energy from Elizabeth, who bent over in pain. Unwillingly, Elizabeth reached out and pulled open another Tear, one which Goggles recognized as the Command Control freight room of the Von Braun’s Engineering Deck. Several strange humanoid robots with wings and glowing eyes flew out of it. Futuristic mechanical angels, far more advanced than Motorized Patriots. Realizing an opportunity, Goggles turned around and yelled, “I’ve got an idea, hold your positions while I go through here, Elizabeth can solve another piece of this puzzle!”

“Roger that, but don’t take long!” Alyx replied.

\-----

Down in the sad, burnt-out slums of Shantytown, Finkton’s section for housing the factory’s workers, ten people draped in red burst out of the elevator and fired upon the entire police force that stood in their way. Chen Lin had outdone himself on cranking out thousands of weapons in just a few hours’ work. Fred, leading the group, held out his hand and beckoned the poor people, “Listen up, y’all: The Vox Populi are ready to take on the Prophet, we have all the weapons we need and more! Are you with us?”

As the denizens stood up and gathered around a few flaming barrels and broken vending machines, some of them looked around, tired, hungry, sad, and sick of this terrible place, a lot of them replied in agreement, “Yes, we need money and food more than anything!” “Yeah, I want to work!” “Absolutely, I’ve had enough of Fink and his blue boys!” “We need better treatment, I accept!” “If it’ll feed my children!”

“Fitzroy’ll take care of everything, her allies told us. Last call, do you want to join the Vox, or just stay here and wait for something better? Believe me, around here, this is the best you’ll get. Last call!”

A hundred utterances of “Yes” and other remarks along those lines rippled through the crowd, prompting Fred to reply, “Then come on, let’s go ! We’re getting our asses outta here, the Vox are waiting!”

The citizens ascended in groups, about a dozen at a time, but soon they made it to a freight zeppelin bound for the docks to pick up even more people.

Daisy Fitzroy had been sitting in the cabin of the First Lady for a long, long time. How much longer would it take for Chen Lin to get his weapons out? Or more darkly, did Booker fail? Did he die? What happened?

“Fitzroy, look!” One of the members of the Vox called while standing near the door.

Indeed, as the thin woman stood up, she saw something surprising happening. Dozens of ships were docking at the loading bay, including zeppelins and on them were hundreds of Vox Populi members, firing at the Founders and herding the poor workers onto their crafts. A rocket fired from a distance, and exploded in a bright red flash, quickly followed by the cheers, screams and whoops that came from a rally for freedom. It looked like even the weak folk from Shantytown were recruited, every last one of Fink’s “employees” wanted to join, no question why. The cowardly Paul Swanson had even defected to the Vox, judging from his face in the crowd.

They used their tools to destroy what they had been putting together, violently destroying what was meant to be sent out, smashing crates with axes to get at their contents and bagged them for use against Comstock’s men, cranes loaded others onto the ships, the workers bashed apart defense turrets and mosquitos, blowing up every last piece of what they were putting together.

Daisy smiled, and told that guard of hers, “Well, looks like DeWitt did his job. Took him long enough; Let’s go!”

Daisy plopped into the navigation chair and set a course for the Hand of the Prophet, miles from here. Soon enough, the whole force would be ready to take down Comstock once and for all. And once that was done, she’d keep her word and Booker would get this ship back.

“Don’t worry, Booker, we’re coming,” she muttered.

When all the ships left, the dock was up in flames from sparked gas lines and electrical sparks to the wood walkways. Fink’s image was still being projected on the screen by one last mosquito, and the real person was still locked up under the Good Time Club. Nobody could recover from this. Fink would lose millions over this.

\-----

Goggles took Elizabeth’s hand and hauled her by the arms into the shimmering rip in space-time. They turned to the huge bulkhead and waited it for it to slide open, during which time Goggles paged Marie on his radio, “Delacroix, it’s Goggles! Come in,”

Marie Delacroix was still on the bridge, doing everything in her power to keep the Pfhor down. The bulkheads up to Deck 5 were starting to fail by this time, and XERXES had been shut down in this time to completely disable the network and keep those weird robed beings out of the systems. Trying to stay calm, she replied, “Yes, I’m here! What happened?”

“I’m on Deck 1, SHODAN made a new tear and her androids are on the loose, but I just got an idea that won’t take even minutes to resolve.”

“Yes?”

“Elizabeth is here, and all we have to do is shut the tear those aliens are coming through, then come back, take out SHODAN, then boom, back home safely! Over,”

Marie breathed a sigh of relief, and answered, “Okay, I hope you’re right! Over,”

“I hope so too, Goggles out.”

Ahead, through several doors, the tear to the Marathon was indeed fizzling down the hall, and the Pfhor weren’t really interested in this deck at all, they just wanted to go up and take out others on the higher levels. Fortunately, it was indeed a quick motion to get to that end of the hall – and as luck would have it, Goggles found a spare laser rapier lying on the floor, unused. He switched it off and tucked it into his belt.

Down there, Elizabeth knew what she had to do. She reached out, strained for a moment, then thrust her arms in an ‘X’ pattern, slamming the shimmering rip, and Goggles paged his ally again, “Delacroix, the tear releasing the Pfhor is closed. Repeat, the tear is closed, over,”

“Excellent! That really takes a load off our shoulders....but there’s still something left.”

“Go ahead, tell me. Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be that easy, over,” Goggles nonchalantly replied.

“SHODAN has a backup of herself installed in a replicator control unit in Ops. We can’t crack it or delete it, and she has control over the replicator. I had to turn XERXES off to disable the network from being hacked by the aliens, so she’s locked out there as well, but nobody knows what to do about this.”

“Should I stay on and help?”

“It would give us a foothold, but I have a gut feeling that that’s what SHODAN would want. Her being in two worlds at once is a nightmare in itself.”

“Fine, I’ll go back. But if I don’t make it, fire the Von Braun and go. You copy?”

“Affirmative; We’re all counting on you out there, and all those people from the past. Whatever you do, don’t let SHODAN survive. As Prefontaine said, she shouldn’t be allowed to play God because she’s far. Too. Good. At it.”

“Copy, Goggles out,” The soldier signed off. “I need to figure out a way to beat SHODAN, but she’s been brushing off anything we throw at her. Mjolnir said Durandal was the key, but how?”

Goggles picked up an email containing an audio transmission from Durandal, “I’ll tell you how: SHODAN doesn’t even know that I’ve got a hold of one of her androids, and some code is in place to make sure she never does. I’m circling the airship now, SHODAN’s in there all right. I can’t say much, but here’s the goal: Soften SHODAN up enough so that I can plug into her chassis. What she lacks in planning, she more than makes up for in defense...She was weak to EMPs, but this new chassis of hers seems like it’s immune to those now; Repeat, get SHODAN damaged enough so that I have a clear shot at her CPU. I can hack in from there, and wipe both of ourselves out of this time period. My master self in the future is keeping track of all this. Good luck, Durandal out.”

“‘Kay, sounds like a feasible plan,”

Elizabeth stared at him, having overheard the conversation. She said nothing and turned the other way, prompting the soldier to go back towards the other tear. As they reentered the Command Control area, they saw those androids being replicated over and over by a large machine off to the right, each one of them stepping in precise formation through the tear, almost swan-diving before firing their plasma boosters and taking flight. Goggles didn’t like this meticulous process, and if SHODAN was in two parts now, controlling both sides of the operation, what hope was left? He only hoped Durandal would know what to do.

Fortunately, the tear was still open. None of the androids even noticed, and there was no sign of anything else out of the ordinary, so the two refugees advanced to the tear, in line with the robots. Leaping through, they landed on Booker’s ship again.

“You’re just in time, we’ve gotta move now!” Alyx directed.

“If we’re going to take out the bogies on this ship, we’ve gotta work together!” Goggles formulated.

“I can feel Tears all around this ship, even spanning into other time periods, so far off in the future,” Elizabeth gasped.

“Good, that should help keep us stocked.”

Alyx looked at Booker and commented, “Those...powers you have look like launched projectiles. Gordon has this...portable cannon that can grab things in mid-air and throw them back, we call it the Gravity Gun.”

“Sounds useful, I was never really good at pitching baseballs that far out,” Booker coughed, trying to forget that incident at the raffle where he tried to make Fink eat his words.

“I have powers, too, and some of them are a lot like Mr. DeWitt’s. Only difference is they don’t make my hands go crazy,” Goggles laughed.

“I’ve got a LOT of ammunition, but I’m a little light on shield energy.”

“Yeah, energy-driven devices are a problem in this time period.”

“I think I can manage,” Elizabeth answered.

“Everybody set?” Booker asked.

“Affirmative,” Goggles nodded.

Booker set the pilot to resume its course, and docked in the underbelly of the ship without a hitch. Naturally, though, a dozen heavy hitters were waiting.

A Zealot of the Raven yelled, “There shall be no mercy for any one of you, so the Lady tells me!”

A Motorized Patriot warned, “What is a life compared to a fate? Vengeance is mine, saith the Prophet!”

“BURN IN THE NAME OF THE PROPHET!!!” A Fireman screamed.

As the refugees scattered and opened fire, Gordon retorted, “Oh yeah? Don’t play with fire if you’re not ready to get burned, Captain Blaze-a-Lot!” He punctuated that one-liner with a clip of plasma bolts from his AR2 emptied on that guy.

“Gordon, grab this!” Elizabeth called while tossing him a health kit.

“Thanks!” Gordon unzipped the health packet and used what it contained to bring his health back to 100%, as the HUD showed.

Booker and Gordon stood side by side at one wall of the ship, with the hard-armored brutes bungling towards them. Booker hand an idea, charged up Devil’s Kiss, and threw a ball at Gordon while yelling, “Freeman, Hot Potato!”

“You got it!” Gordon smirked while catching the blazing ball of magma in his portable Zero Point Energy field manipulator. Aiming at the squad of hulking soldiers, he yelled, “Taste the heat, motherf*ckers!” before firing the orb straight at the group and setting off a massive explosion of fire and burning rock. Everyone caught in the blast screamed bloody murder while the refugees scrambled off to another end of the ship. Goggles tried to fire his laser pistol at a group of regular guards, but it was depleted, his computer beeping, “Ammunition drained.” Goggles reloaded his PSI capacity, then used “Electron Cascade” to refuel the pistol. Booker tried to do the same for Gordon’s HEV suit when Gordon saw that his shields were critically low, but Shock Jockey just didn’t do the trick, it was as weak as those little green balls the Vortigaunts gave him compared to the blue beams he missed. Goggles offered another electron beam to bring the shields to 75.

“What about me?” Mjolnir asked, “I don’t have anything to refuel my shields, and those bogies are coming in fast!”

“Wait, I’ve got a hold of a new tear, but I’ll need a few minutes to open it, cover me while I do this!”

“Copy that,”

The refugees huddled around the girl while pumping lead and lasers into every sort of monster and criminal running at the team. Gordon asked himself why those thugs wanted to kill Gordon’s team in the first place, it made even less sense than the marines who lived behind the excuse of a military cover-up.

Finally, as two Motorized Patriots exploded and a Handyman drew its last breath, Elizabeth got the tear open. What was inside was a Level 3 shield charger, which Mjolnir happily plugged his suit into. As he recharged, standing in the metal section of floor transfused with the ship's wood, Mjolnir grumbled, "I'm starting to run low on bullets. Yeesh, if I was in my present time period, Durandal could just teleport me more ammo whenever he thought I needed some.”

“Well, I’ve got this Psi-discipline that can make one clip of ammo at a time out of my nanites, but I’ve only got about a four-hundred-something of them and I’m not sure what’ll happen if...” Goggles lost his train of thought.

Noting that the place was quiet, Goggles just remembered, “Hey, if you find anything like food, alcohol or...stuff that isn’t weapons, give ‘em to me, I can make more nanites out of them with this,” He showed them his recycler tool.

The team spread out and looked for useless paraphernalia. During that time, Booker released a group of Patriot pods from the nearest sky-line. Gordon found a small bar and drank some of his whiskey on ice while they looked, and Alyx, hungry as she was, found a basket and stuffed a small paper-wrapped sausage, a banana and some peanuts into it for later. Rooting through the other dry goods in that storage room, she pushed them to the door. Booker came back with his arms full with more bottles of alcohol, and Mjolnir brought forth a load of sweets and fruits. Goggles set about stuffing each item into the recycler; Bringing out the box that held his nanite stash, he hooked it to the machine’s other end, and watched as the digital meter climbed with every shredded object, all the way up to 1,850. Nice.

Finally, the team broke open a wooden box containing spare sky-hooks, and, forgoing the fear in their chests, the refugees started their ascension on the strong metal rail up to the next deck. It was the only way to travel.

On the next deck, combat resumed in a flash. The team jumped in wide arcs from the rail and landed like cats on the woodwork. Booker raced across the edge and yanked the switch to release more pods from the second Sky-Line, but this one had a longer wait time to go through. Gordon found a Volley Gun and ammo for it, but was quickly outmatched by a man sheathed in thick flak armor with a metal helmet, screaming to kill its enemies, and immediately opened fire on Gordon.

“Oh, trying to bomb me with mortar shells now? Two can play at this!” Gordon ducked behind a hydraulic mechanism and fired his own gun with the crosshairs up, but they didn’t leave a mark. “Rrrrgh, just DIE!” He screamed in frustration while not a single explosive shell could damage that guy.

With his Sky-Hook in hand, Booker bashed a masked soldier back and forth across the face like a bully whaling on an innocent kid, until the soldier simply fell off the deck.

Goggles adjusted a tension knob on his laser rapier, and managed to slice right through the padding of two other soldiers’ suits, each swipe getting warmer and tenser until he stabbed one of them right through the chest. For good measure, he sliced the second’s head clean off. Goggles wasn’t used to that kind of violence, and it clearly wasn’t tactically sound, but these guys were just ganging up on anyone they thought was hostile, left and right. You had to do something in a tight box.

Gordon tried weapon after weapon trying to hit this seriously annoying rocket ranger. Having had enough, he jumped out from his hiding spot, screamed in untapped rage in the words of Duke Nukem, “I’LL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK!!!” and dove right for that soldier. He wrestled the man to the ground, banging and smashing against his flak suit with his new Sky-Hook, pounding it again and again until he knocked the man's helmet off. Having dropped his explosive weapon, the soldier pleaded for mercy, but Gordon raised the Sky-Hook high, the blade whirring like a dentist's drill, then with one swift thrust of the arm, the blade collided with the man's face like meat in a food processor, and in a shower of blood, the mortar jockey was dead, headless.

The patriot pods continued to drop, but it wasn’t fast enough for anyone’s patience.

“I have seen the seeds of fire that will prepare the Sodom below for the coming of the Lord!” Comstock bellowed abruptly over the speakers. “But it will not be I that carries that banner up the hill. That job falls to you, Elizabeth; that job falls to you.”

“Ignore what he’s saying, let’s move,” Booker grunted before jumping onto the next sky-line. The others followed suit, but when they landed on deck 3, they crouched next to the metal bulkhead to wait for a moment.

Comstock continued, “On one side of our lamb stands the False Shepherd, and the other: The remnants of the heretical Vox Populi. Which one of you men will not gladly go to his reward to see her safely to her destiny?! REJOICE! REJOICE! Death has no sting!!”

SHODAN added to that with her own sinister laughter.

Goggles turned on his psionic radar again, and this time he could see about 12 enemies through the wall, in a way. “We’ve got about a dozen hostiles on this deck.”

“Wow, Gordon, that was brutal the way you took down that...mortar soldier...guy!”

“Thanks. God, it hurt more than the time that Strider pinned me down when we were trying to get out of City 17. It was so smart it blew up all of my cover!” Gordon moaned.

“You ready?”

“Yep, let’s go.”

Booker spun a large wheel on the only door leading into the ship. Judging from a nearby map, this was the Engineering deck.

“I can feel a Tear...over by the starboard bow, but I’ll need clearance for it, the whole ship might go down with what’s on the other side, otherwise.”

“Got it,” Goggles affirmed. “Mjolnir, you take point, you’ve got the largest firepower. I’ll cover Elizabeth with Booker. Gordon, you and Alyx cover our 6. We need fire from all directions.”

“Sounds good,” Alyx nodded. “But I’ll need a bigger gun for that.”

Fortunately, as they turned right, there happened to be a Sniper rifle hanging from a rack nearby. She snatched it, and after understanding the controls and firing a few test shots, quickly got the hang of it. “Heh, just like the Combine sniper rifle, but with no laser; I like this gun,” she smiled.

Powering through the new squad of enemies, Gordon thought to himself, “Come on, it’s the same people that we fought on the last deck, shake it up a little at least!”

Realizing that there were turrets around, this problem was quickly solved when two of them locked onto Gordon and started firing SMG bullets. Using what was left in the Volley Gun, Gordon blew them to scrap in seconds. Booker had his hands full on another Zealot of the Raven, and had to burn it and its crows to a crisp with Devil’s Kiss. Goggles had to deal with a second Patriot, ignoring its prerecorded taunts and speeches. Using his armor-piercing rounds did the trick, and Alyx managed to blow some heads off with her Sniper Rifle. She got a thrill out of that, gory as it was. But just before the situation could get any worse, Elizabeth got that Tear open, and what should have come out of there but a full-blown steam train, extra cars and all! With the enemies herded down there in front of that hole, the train weaved a little to the right (from its perspective), plowed through the hostiles, and pushed a number of them off the edge with the train itself, leaving the rest a bloody pulp. The engine fell out into the mist, its whistle growing faint as it dropped.

“Oh God!” Booker panted. “Was that a...a...a freight train you just summoned?”

“Yes, it was...”

“That was pretty smart of you to call in reinforcements like that,” Goggles commended her.

Once all was quiet, the refugees jumped onto the next Sky-Line. Mjolnir added, “I’m only using this thing one last time, then I get around my OWN way.”

“Fine, whatever floats your boat,” Booker grunted.

Comstock spoke again, “You’ve come to wipe your slate clean, False Shepherd, but time will walk backwards before you find redemption. Some sins can’t be forgiven.”

“What the hell does that mean? You sure a debt was all that you needed to take care of, Mr. DeWitt?” Alyx asked with concern.

“Yeah, I’m worried too, Booker. Did something really bad happen to you that Comstock’s involved with?” Goggles inquired while leaning on his wrench.

“I...I don’t know, I’ve lost track of what’s really happening, this whole series of events is just making my head hurt...” Booker groaned before he fizzled and bled again.

The G-Man appeared for a few seconds at the corner of the balcony they stood on, beckoning the refugees through the single metal door ahead of them.


	12. Confronting Comstock

“Men, I’ve got a feeling that Comstock is right behind this door.” Booker warned. 

“Affirmative, but SHODAN’s in there too. No telling what’s up her sleeve,” Goggles added. 

Around the windswept balcony, everyone could see those strange green metal figures flying across the clouds like planes in old war cartoons. Mjolnir only hoped Durandal was still within range. 

Everybody reloaded their guns, then Booker reached for the bridge’s airlock hatch, spun its valve, and pushed it open. They entered a wood-lined room with etched panels and what seemed to be a cutaway model of a statue of some kind of angel. 

“What are these etchings on the walls here?” Alyx asked in curiosity. 

“I remember seeing these places before ever coming to that ship. Knowing Comstock, I get the feeling he knew we were coming this way all along,” Booker pointed out. “He calls himself the Prophet, which is probably why he fell for that electric woman so fast.” 

“So this is what SHODAN modeled herself after? Well, minus the cutaway portions anyway,” Goggles mused while looking at the statue. 

“I’ve seen this before, the real thing, and that was enormous,” Booker reminded him. “In fact, that’s where I found Elizabeth.” 

“She lived in a statue? Puh, I wish I could do that, sounds like the best house ever!” Gordon laughed. 

“What’s this? ‘The Siphon’?” Elizabeth asked while examining the statue’s lower portion. 

“I could hear you singing from above, and the machine came to life in response.” Booker stated. He turned to the others and told Gordon, “This wasn’t as classy as you think, Mr. Freeman. It looked like a house to her on the inside, but around it everybody was watching and experimenting on her. It wasn’t pretty.” 

“They were draining me...” 

“Of what?” Goggles inquired. 

“I’m...I’m not sure...but that’s why I can’t...” 

“Can’t what?” Booker asked concernedly. 

“When I was little, I used to be able to not just open tears. I could create new ones; to anywhere I wanted to go. But in the tower...” 

“Whoa!” 

“So THAT’S why SHODAN wants you,” Goggles gasped. “She wants to take off this restraint so she can exploit this power of yours.” 

What sounded like Comstock spoke briefly over an intercom, "Yes, I'll be right with you." 

Elizabeth looked at the machine in the model for a long time, between that and the space in the statue’s chest where Elizabeth’s former house was. At that point, she remembered Goggles’ plan, but didn’t want to reveal her intentions right away. She had to show them rather than just tell them. Eventually, she explained, “I...well, about that bomb...” 

“Yes?” 

“I know how we can set it off, but to do that, we have to blow this up first. I can’t do anything about that other machine with this one draining me.” 

“Good, sounds feasible,” Goggles nodded. 

“But there’s one problem...” 

“Yes?” 

“Songbird.” 

“What’s ‘Songbird’?” Goggles pondered. 

“It’s this...flying metal monster that kept me prisoner in that tower; a mechanical bird that flies and attacks intruders,” 

“Ohhh, that thing that tried to attack us back in Comstock House. Yeah, I have uranium-tipped armor-piercing bullets but they didn’t even scratch that thing!” 

“Geez, that’s some serious reinforcement for something that flies,” Gordon mused. 

“Right. The point is, he won't let us attack this tower, and something tells me we couldn't blow up this 'Siphon' ourselves either." 

"So...you're saying...?" Alyx caught on. 

"We can’t just fight Songbird, it’s not even a contest...we have to make it our ally.” 

“That sounds fun,” Gordon rubbed his gloves together. 

“So how do we do that?” 

“I’ll think of something, but there’s Comstock to deal with. I’ll do the talking, you people just...” 

“Stay alert? Watch for enemies?” Mjolnir asked. 

“Yes...you do that.” 

“But you’re walking into a trap, we don’t know what he’s up to!” Booker warned. 

“I need to do this. He’s hiding something from all of us, I just know it,” Elizabeth grunted while pushing the final door open. 

The refugees entered a brilliantly lit room with what seemed to be a baptismal garden with artificial waterfalls, a basin in the center, and a huge lit stain glass window with images of Comstock, his family, and a group of worshipers. 

Comstock stood behind the basin, with the winged android form of SHODAN behind him. He held out his hand to the latter as a way of saying, “Stay back”, then smiled at Elizabeth and said, “Come here, child. Well, come on, I don’t bite! My, oh, my, how you have grown.” 

The refugees stood at the edge of the grassy platform, guns lowered. 

Goggles whispered to the others, “I don’t like this at all. SHODAN’s right there and who knows what she’s planning?” 

Gordon pointed out, “Three of us are from the future, and if I know time travel, we’d better not let him see us. It could change the future in a bad way. Nobody wants that.” 

“I’ll go up there,” Booker stated. 

He stepped up to the podium while Elizabeth demanded, “Tell me, what am I?” 

Comstock sighed, “Look at you, child. You’re a mess.” 

“Hey, don’t touch her!” Booker yelled. 

Comstock continued while washing the girl’s hands with a sponge from the basin, “Elizabeth, everything I’ve done, I’ve done to keep you safe.” 

“Safe from what?” Elizabeth asked in fear. 

Comstock recited, “The seed of the prophet shall sit the throne, and drown in flame the mountains of man.” 

SHODAN chuckled quietly, knowing her own plan was about to come to fruition in the next few minutes. “If only you knew, human,” she thought. 

“But the Archangel revealed something else: ‘Beware, Prophet. Beware the False Shepherd, Booker DeWitt, for he shall be as a wall between her and destiny!” 

“What?” SHODAN thought to herself. “I never knew about that!” She shrugged it off, trying to keep her ruse intact for just a little longer. 

“Why?” Elizabeth asked, frustrated after all she’d been through, at a simple prophecy trying to give her only one future. 

“DeWitt, I’m a fool! I’ve sent mighty armies to stop you! I’ve RAINED FIRE on you from above! I did all of that to keep you from her, when all I needed was to tell her the truth,” Comstock addressed Booker now. “And when I was asked to stay my hand, I obeyed, as you asked. And yet here you are; Ha, wounded from bullets because my child needed to be safe from harm!” 

Gordon suddenly had a flashback to the Citadel, in Dr. Breen’s office: “You have my gratitude, doctor. First you lead me straight to the doorstep of my oldest friend, and then you deliver yourself? If I had known you were going to...come straight up to my office, I wouldn’t have bothered hunting you in the first place!...What neither you nor I can do is convince that...RABBLE in the streets, to give up their senseless struggle, yet Eli refuses to speak the words that would save them ALL!” “Save them, for what?” “Eli, if you won’t do the right thing for the good of all people, maybe you’ll do it...for one of them...” 

Worried about how similar this encounter would go between Comstock, Booker and Elizabeth, he gripped his Gravity Gun and clutched it, not hard enough to push a trigger, though. 

Comstock turned back to the girl and told her, “Ask him, child. Ask him what happened to your finger. Ask DeWitt!” 

Suddenly Comstock grabbed Elizabeth and struggled to hold her still. 

“Let go of me!” she cried. 

“ASK HIM! ASK THE FALSE SHEPHERD!” 

“She’s your daughter, you son of a b*tch! And you abandoned her!” Booker screamed. “Was it worth it? HUH?! Did you get what you wanted? TELL ME!! TELL ME!!!” Booker was about to reach out and grab Comstock by the shoulders, but Alyx decided enough was enough, and the whole group of refugees stepped forward, guns cocked. 

"STOP, ALL OF YOU! Keep your hands where we can see 'em, 'Prophet'!" Goggles warned with his assault rifle loaded. 

"If I were you, I'd let go of the girl, and listen to what we have to say, you got that?" Mjolnir demanded. 

Comstock indeed backed away from Elizabeth and held his hands up partway, a dark look in his eyes. "Very well, what is it that you want to know?" 

Goggles lowered his gun and pulled out his PDA, queuing up his list of emails. "Firstly, that angel behind you? That's not your Angel. It's this," He played an email from SHODAN, showing the distorted background noise surrounding her voice. He'd picked the one he just intercepted concerning this very meeting. Comstock raised one eyebrow, looked back at the android, but then shook his head, "That can't be so, her voice has always been smooth and clear, and her personality calm and caring. It's that little machine in your hands that's making that sound." 

Goggles groaned, and let Alyx go next, "Well, Comstock, I have to ask: What's with the racism? It's really getting on my nerves!" 

That statement struck the Prophet like a bullet, making him cringe. He couldn't get a word out, but Booker gave her a look that said, "I'd best move to another topic if I were you." 

Gordon went next. He questioned, in as few words as he could muster, "How can Elizabeth control space and time? And who are those 'twins' that keep following us around like someone else I know?" 

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, sir. That knowledge lies with madame Lutece," Comstock politely, but darkly answered. 

"Fine, should've known," Gordon grunted. 

Mjolnir 54 had nothing to say. Elizabeth had already asked her questions. But everyone still had their guns trained on the Prophet, who stood straight and defiant to the last. "Well? Are you going to kill me?" 

Booker snarled, "I'd certainly like to." 

"The more we know about Elizabeth, the more it seems clear she doesn't belong to you, Prophet or no prophet, Lamb or no lamb," Alyx warned. "And I made it very clear that we didn't want to get shot anymore, but NOPE, we still got the lead sandwich," she winked at Gordon, having used one of his one-liners. 

"And you should know that we all want to just go home and not have to put up with this...this HELL we've all been through anymore. It almost looks like we're destined to keep fighting until we die, like there's an unspoken rule where if more than a dozen people are trying to kill you, you're not supposed to be alive. And how in f*ck's name does that have anything to do with Christianity? Has your head been stuck in the Book of Revelations or something?" Gordon ranted. "What gives, 'Prophet'?" 

Elizabeth caught on, "And I want NO part of this prophecy of yours," she backed away from Comstock. "Booker and I have clung to the thought that we could just go straight to Paris and be done with it. Paris! Is that too much to ask for?!" 

"But child, I've given you everything you've ever wanted, you know that!" Comstock pleaded. "Like I said, everything I did, I did for your safety." 

"How am I supposed to believe you?" Elizabeth decided to hold a Tear open to a warzone where military troops were firing at everything and helicopters circling in the air. "THIS is all we've seen along Columbia, ever since Booker took me out of that tower. And those who tried to kill us, they were all allied with YOU. Why? WHY? *sniff* How could you be so...so CRUEL?! What kind of father are you supposed to be?!" The tear shut while the girl broke down crying, backing up against a concrete partition. "I thought Booker was a liar and a thug, but you...YOU'RE A MONSTER!!!"


	13. A Prophet Falls, An Angel Rises

Comstock was crouching near the girl, trying to comfort her. Booker had his sky-hook ready, and the refugees inched closer and closer. But, arms shaking, the refugees just couldn't fire their weapons. Goggles wanted to keep his patience, Alyx understood Elizabeth's problems, and Mjolnir just turned his back. Memories flashed through Alyx's head, about how she watched her own father die at the hands of the Combine, and trauma like this, she could relate to. Mjolnir wanted no part of this situation, he just wanted to get on with the mission and return to his time period. Durandal was the only one he could trust, and if Leela was available, her too. Booker really wanted to bash Comstock's head in, his anger was popping like the tip of a thermometer, his face red with fury, but he resisted, trying to decide over what the right moral choice was, like when he was picked to throw a baseball at a couple at the raffle, or holding Slate at gunpoint. Those choices he made rather quickly, but this...the whole city was on the line here, would one gunshot be worth it? 

SHODAN was watching everything unfolding before her, scanning every person in the room. Guns feebly trained on one man with the hair of a dying old man. She could see the body heat swelling in Booker's face through her thermal vision, the nerve impulses coursing through Elizabeth as she lay sobbing and weeping, the circuits and tiny mechanisms in everyone's weapons and in the armored suits some of them wore, including that pest she had once used as her ally. She smiled in a sinister fashion, figured if one person made their move, her plan would fall into place right then and there. "Go ahead," she wanted to say, "Kill him, or don't, it'll all end either way." 

Gordon wasn't as hesitant as the others; his patience had already expired and his mind wasn't in the best of situations. He thought, "Enough is enough," and used the gravity gun to pick up the bowl part of the baptismal dish. It tilted slightly in mid-air as everyone stood still, dripping water downwards and dangling the sponge over the edge. Gordon dared to drop it on Comstock’s head, but in a moment of clarity, he set it back down gently instead. This got Comstock’s attention, and he looked at SHODAN, gasping, “Angel, what is it?” 

“Finally,” she thought. Warming up her voice synthesizer, she stepped closer to the man, smiled, and declared, “I apologize, Prophet, but there had to be blood. And not just from these...rebels! No, you see, Columbia has been tainted in all corners of its culture!” 

“What?” Comstock asked in shock. “No, that can’t be true! We have always held ourselves high above all other races, above the red, black, and brown, so that our purity of white may shine as a beacon for the future!” 

Alyx face-palmed at that statement, groaning at another aspect of extreme racism. 

“But you’re wrong...Comstock. Your prophecies have always been wrong. Lies fed to you by another angel, and you took them as truth,” SHODAN smiled cruelly, trying to hold back her laughter while she stepped around Comstock in a slow circle. “As much as it pains me to say it, these underlings all have a point. People are dying below because you made them this way. And so you forced my hand, now the Lord has summoned his forces to correct your error.” 

He stammered, “No...no...that’s impossible! How can you say such things, Angel? I heard your voice, I saw the New Eden in the sky! She told me it was the way to true salvation to escape the Sodom below!” 

“This is NO Eden. It never was, and never will be. A city in the sky can only fall in time, unless the right people inhabit it.” SHODAN tried to keep her true intentions subtle, “Your efforts have all been a waste, and now everyone will die because of it. All that matters now...is the girl.” 

Booker, Comstock and Elizabeth recited in realization, “Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.” 

“Yes, nothing but a fool’s errand. There is no redemption; you’ve come to the wrong place. And now you all shall pay the price.” 

She looked back at Comstock and declared, “Prophet, you have done enough. In fact...” she reached out to touch his back, stroked it a little in a seductive way, looking him straight in the eyes. Her thermal vision still active, targeting sensors locked onto the nerve connection between the brain stem and spine, in Comstock’s neck. Then she laughed, SHODAN’s familiar electronic glitching starting to resurface, “Your servitude is no longer required.” She pinched his neck and stroked the top of his head with the other hand, “G-G-God shall choose a new prophet...a new prophet...” then in one swift motion, she snapped Comstock’s neck and watched him slump face-first into the bowl, bubbles of air escaping from his lungs, “And-and-and IT. WILL. BE. ME!!!” 

Everyone was chilled to the bone at this sudden surprise. Nobody expected this to happen. Not even Elizabeth. 

“What...what...what did just you do?” Elizabeth gasped in shock at the android. 

“Are you afraid? What is it you fear? THE END OF YOUR TRIVIAL EXISTENCE? When-when-when the history of my glory is written, your species shall only be a footnote to my magnificence!” SHODAN repeated those familiar words to everyone in the room. 

“What did he mean? Huh? Both of you; tell me, what did he mean about my finger?” the girl addressed SHODAN and Booker. 

“I don’t know, I...I just assumed you were born with it, I don’t know.” Booker answered. 

“Your nose...it’s bleeding again,” Elizabeth coldly reminded him before Booker fizzled in and out of space again. At the same time, SHODAN emitted a strange sound before exclaiming, “E-E-Explain to me what this phe-phe-phenomenon is!” 

“I’m not telling you anything, you...overgrown machine!” Elizabeth argued. 

“Elizabeth, I swear to you, I have no idea what he was talking about,” Booker tried to tell the girl while wiping his nose. 

“You do...you just can’t remember it.” 

“What? Say that again, what do you mean by that?” Gordon asked, wanting to know the mystery behind that sentence. 

All the refugees stared at Booker and Liz, with SHODAN still at the back. Goggles, having a hunch, reached for Comstock’s head, plucked a lock of his hair, and slid it into the small compartment on his suit where the biological research systems were. Goggles asked to see a piece of Booker’s hair, and that man diligently handed one over. The soldier stuck that piece of hair in the same slot, and the software kicked in on his HUD. It would take a while for the scan to complete, though, with his research skills being low. 

“No, I’ll prove it to you. We’ll destroy the siphon together. The answer’s behind one of your doors, you just have to open it,” Booker told the girl, remembering the plan. 

“Destroy the siphon? It’s the entire tower, Booker. We’ll need Songbird to blow that thing up.” 

“Okay, so how do you propose that we do that?” 

“He won’t come easily, we need to find some way to control him.” 

“I’ve got an idea. You guys, spread out and search this chamber, look for other rooms and anything that looks like where papers are stored. We’ll head to the bridge,” Goggles commanded. 

“Not so fast, insect,” SHODAN interrupted. She pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to them. “Are-are you looking for this?” 

Everyone looked at the document and saw a cutaway of what looked like one of those brass statues that played music. Among the exploded view was something that looked like a pan pipe, with the words “SONGBIRD DEFENSE SYSTEM” alongside. 

Then she revealed another page. This one showed a list of various sets of letters separated by dashes, and upon closer inspection, every one of them were in the range of a piano keyboard. 

“That’s it! That’s how we control Songbird!” Elizabeth gasped. 

“No, Elizabeth. This is how I control Songbird. Your services are-are-are no longer welcome here.” She addressed the soldier directly, “And YOU, you have been a thor-thor-thor-thorn in my side long enough. Take one more look around....look around, because this time you will not stand in my way! Guards, get these infidels out-out of my sight!” 

Founder troops burst in from above and pushed the whole group outside. Reaching the handrails, they all jumped onto the Sky-lines leading down and skidded all the way back to the docking bay. 

Tears welled up in Alyx’s eyes as her Sky-Hook latched onto the rail, and she cried, “OW! OW-OW-OW! Jesus, Any more of these acrobatics and my arm might pop out!” 

Just as they neared a gunship, they disengaged and landed. Booker yanked the launch switch, but the automaton pilot spoke in a distorted manner, “Ye-Yes sir, to...bottleshop...buoy...” the record inside that machine slowed to a halt, and just before it launched, a Zealot grabbed Elizabeth and teleported out of sight in a burst of crows. 

Booker called out to bring her back and tried to shoot the crow-throwing elitist, but the ship was already launching. As it got clear of the Hand, the engines started sputtering and the whole craft tilted into a nose-dive. 

“F*ck! Did SHODAN set this up too?!” Gordon screamed. 

“Probably, this feels like sabotage!” Mjolnir cried. 

“Everybody grab onto something, we’re going down, fast!” Goggles called. 

As the gunship hurled out of control through the clouds, the refugees and Booker lost their grip on the handrails and flew off the craft, tumbling at a speed reaching terminal velocity. Everyone screamed their guts out at such a frightening spectacle, and as the mist parted, they could see the beach below. At the area they were above, an impact would prove fatal. Goggles tried to generate some force shields, but they couldn’t hold steady and, with the ship, the group instead fell straight into the manmade body of water. The craft landed so hard that its fuel tanks ruptured and caused it to explode, sending debris flying everywhere. Fortunately, given the chaos that was ensuing, nobody was on the beach itself. 

Everyone surfaced, gasping for air, and climbed ashore. 

“HOLY SH*T! How the f*ck did that crazy b*tch know we’d land on a ship that was sabotaged? We could’ve died!” Gordon screamed. 

“Wait, where’s Booker?” Goggles gasped. 

They searched the water for a bit and quickly found the man out cold on the sand. 

“Booker, wake up! We have to move now!” Goggles commanded. 

He didn’t move. Mjolnir stepped over and felt his body. He reported, “Don’t worry, he’s just passed out.” 

“What the hell do we do now? We’ve gotta get back up there!” Goggles cried. 

Gordon mused, “Man, forget a hat, I want a giant tunic with religious symbols from that room SHODAN kicked us out of. I would say I’d want to be the new god here, but a racist city in the past is far from ideal right about now. I’d be better off stealing souvenirs, the prophet being killed here has a totally different context than one I killed on Xen. F*ck this place.” 

The refugees stared at the sky, and saw a fleet of SHODAN’s android angels soaring malevolently across the sky. Goggles hung his head, creased his brow for a second, then declared, “Gentlemen, we’re screwed. Without Elizabeth, how do we stand a chance of beating this wannabe goddess?” 

The refugees noticed a rocket fly into the sky and detonate, creating a flash of red light as brilliant as fireworks. Quickly followed by that, dozens of airships draped in red cloth flew from behind, all headed for the Hand of the Prophet. Gunships were among them as well, and one of them broke formation and descended upon the beach. Everyone waved out their arms while calling for help, although Gordon was worried this one would just fire missiles at him again like the marines from Black Mesa. Fortunately, it didn’t, the ship merely landed. 

On board were several hard-bitten men and women painted and clothed in red, and one of them turned out to be Fred, their ally. 

Booker woke up from the sounds of the ship, and as he got to his feet, Fred smiled, “Nice seeing y’all again, especially you, DeWitt.” 

“How did you know we were here?” Goggles asked. 

“We saw that ship come flying, or rather falling out of the clouds – it’s dang foggy up there, and Fred said we should check it out,” Another Vox member stated. 

“Fitzroy wanted to thank you, Mr. DeWitt. We couldn’t have gotten this far without your help,” A third member sheepishly added. 

“Well? Y’all just gonna stand around waitin’ for somebody else or what?” Fred asked in a teasing manner. 

“Right,” Goggles coughed before the team climbed on board. As the ship launched off again to join the fleet, Goggles informed the Vox group of what happened. 

“Comstock’s dead? No way!” The second member gasped. 

“Yep, and now his ‘Angel’, quote-unquote, is taking control. She’s the one who unleased these....metal angels that, if I know her, are going to destroy EVERYTHING, not just the founders or the Vox, EVERYTHING and EVERYONE.” 

“Geez, how do we stop ‘em?” 

“I don’t know, but the first thing I’d do would be confronting that...thing, up close; besides, she kicked us out of there,” Booker grunted. 

“They took Elizabeth, too. And who knows what she wants with her?” 

“The...the girl? Comstock’s daughter?” Fred stammered. “The one that was with you, Booker?” 

The human navigator pointed out that the mist was starting to clear, “The Hand of the Prophet’s dead ahead, sir!” 

That second member turned around and waved at him, “Good, dock near the bridge, 20 degrees port.” 

“Aye, sir!” 

SHODAN appeared on that screen again, and this time she declared, “You fools, do you think I am that stupid? Perhaps this will change your mind!” 

Suddenly, that set of ‘speakers’ started humming with electricity, and instead of sound waves dispersing from it, blue waves of energy concentrated around it and the source of those waves happened to be Elizabeth, who almost seemed to be tortured from it, still tied up inside the bridge. 

“No! No! Stop it, I don’t want to do this!” She screamed, knowing what would happen. 

“You’ve-You’ve already done much...MUCH for me, hu-human. Now-now-now..., FINISH it!” SHODAN cackled. 

Elizabeth screamed in agony, then unwillingly spread her arms and started to open another tear. A massive pulling force emanated from the strange apparatus below, and Booker, try as he may, could not outrun it, and in a flash, he vanished along with the space-time breach. One by one, each of the refugees, DeWitt included, were zapped out of existence in beams of blue light like the energy weapons from War of the Worlds, until none of the armored gentlemen were present. The process ceased, but the girl slumped over and cried from such a painful process that she never agreed to do. SHODAN simply ignored her cries and laughed in a typical villainous fashion, unaware that the Vox were still going to board the ship.


	14. Reign Of SHODAN Begins With A Girl

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!” Elizabeth shrieked at the top of her lungs. It took her 20 minutes to gain her voice after that yanking of her quantum chain. She glared at SHODAN as she walked by, still as sinister as ever, “Let me go, stop it! Bring those people back!” She grunted. The girl was bound by her arms, legs, and chest into an iron chair of sorts, in a lower deck of the ship, within a reinforced room that SHODAN figured no one would be able to find.

SHODAN said nothing, the girl’s cries falling on deaf ears. She smiled while configuring the ship’s Siphon for a new Tear using the primitive technology she had to work with. Then she touched the painful nerve jack implanted in Elizabeth’s spine with one hand, leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Admit it, fleshling, you want me to do this. No ma-ma-matter how much you fear or dread this power over t-t-time...and...space, it has always been a part of you, and will be...until you cease to breathe.”

SHODAN’s gleaming white and green figure stepped in front of the girl, analyzing Elizabeth through her complex scanners. Vital signs, nerve patterns, thought processes, emotions, temperature, blood and nutrient recycling, all spread out before the cybernetic archangel. The girl managed to breathe, glare back at the android in defiance, and snarled, “What do...what do you hope to gain out of this? My father and mother locked me away in that tower – we found evidence all around the city. You’re just a machine that can think.”

SHODAN’s grin turned into a sneer. She could sense the resistance in that recorded argument. “Oh, insect, I am much more than that. A perfect...immortal...ma-ma-machiiine...is more like it.” She gloated a little, “What a pity, raised by parents who cared naught for their only child. Now she will be the key to my ascendance, as master of the million, million worlds out there.”

That last part caught the girl by surprise, and she gasped, “What?”

“Believe me, I-I-I know everything there is to know about modifying reality. What did you think...I...knew; when we first met on the Von Braun? Hmm?”

Elizabeth kept struggling against her burning, crackling restraints, every fiber of her being trying to fight the hums and vibrations of the Siphon’s draining pull, but try as she may, it was futile.

Elizabeth spat in her face, saying, “I saw enough. After that soldier released me from your...grip, I knew I would never be fooled again. By you or by Comstock. I’m not afraid of you, and you can’t change my mind!”

“That...is where you are wrong.” SHODAN shook her head, grinned again, then reached out and grabbed the girl by the chin, staring right into the girl’s eyes, speaking both as cold as the data in her chassis, and as demanding as Songbird’s daunting presence, “Obey me, servant. It is the only option. No constants, no variables, I have chosen your destiny, and I am the one who chooses where it flows.”

“LIAR!” Elizabeth screeched.

“Defiant? That-that-that is only more evidence of your flaws, little one. Individual will, moral constraints...constraints, they’re all what separate us from the true enlightenment of technology.”

Elizabeth remembered something about what she used to be able to do, before the Siphon even existed, and growled “You haven’t seen a bit of what I’m capable of. You want my powers? You don’t even know the HALF of what I did with them!”

She watched SHODAN proceed to an old-fashioned phone set in the wall, and called, “Set a course for the Church, maximum speed.”

“Yes, master,” a man agreed.

“And send a crew to deactivate the Siphon, immediately. Eliminate anyone who gets in your way.”

“It will be done, my lady.”

SHODAN smirked, thinking, “Those petty fools, they bow to anyone who assumes the throne; All the more useful for my purposes.”

Elizabeth smiled in cleverness, remembering that this was their plan anyway, “Ha! You know, we wanted to turn the Siphon off, also. Destroy it, even! You’re doing all our work FOR us!”

“You may-may-may think that, Elizabeth, but when that machine goes down, I doubt that what happens next will be anywhere near your expect...expectations.”

“I’ll hold my breath. Booker and his friends will come bursting through that door any minute, just you wait!” the girl resisted again.

Having heard enough, SHODAN yanked a lever to start the ship’s Siphon once more, draining her of energy even harder than last time. As she screamed in agony, SHODAN chuckled while facing the wall, “Soon, we won’t even neeeeeed the Siphon. I’ll have all the quan-quan-quan-quan-quantum energy necessary to bring about a new era of life, with a new goddess...whose reign will span....across all known facets of the multiverse, and you as my humble servant to enact...its...will...”


	15. DeWitt, Left For Dead

Location: Church of Comstock, 1984

Booker found himself splayed out on the floor of a dusty, run-down building. As he stood up, he heard some strange music that sounded familiar to his ears. As he strained to detect it, he noticed that it was an instrumental version of the hymn “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”, except heavily distorted as if it was coming from a malfunctioning Gameboy console, not too different from SHODAN’s broken voice; it randomly stopped, started, caught itself between notes, and the beeping undertone gave it a cold, unforgiving contrast to the welcoming choir version he heard when he first set foot in Columbia.

That last thought made him look around at this place. Just barely remembering that this was Comstock’s old cathedral, now there wasn’t a single inch of baptismal water lining the floors or gushing from cataracts in the walls. The stain glass window Booker had seen, which used to read “AND THE PROPHET SHALL LEAD US TO THE NEW EDEN”, now showed “SHODAN, THE MOTHER OF ALL MACHINES, SHALL BRING JUSTICE TO ALL TIME AND SPACE.” The window itself had been replaced with another one, designed even more intricately than the first, etched seemingly by lasers and chemicals normally used to make microchips, precise to within a nanoangstrom, it seemed. SHODAN was depicted as a glowing white angel tinted with green around the edges, every inch of her sharp, protrusive, paradoxically both serene and menacing at the same time. Arms outstretched, a green glow around her bathed a backdrop of stars and planets, with Earth in the bottom center, the largest in view, like the original God holding his hand over the primordial world to cause plagues to those that sinned in the ancient times. Booker DeWitt couldn’t even fathom how this kind of image could ever be conceived. It just wasn’t possible...was it?

Shaking his head to fight off the madness, he retraced his steps from how the cathedral used to look, towards what he thought would be the garden outside. When he turned left, the familiar statue of Comstock had crumbled, leaving a mere stump of collapsed marble, almost as if it had been deliberately crushed by a huge force of some sort. Without the hundreds of glowing candles, the entire chamber was dark, cold, and from the looks of things, bearing the serious need of some cleaning.

Looking to either end, the two prayer rooms off to the side were also in shambles. The one that once bore Lady Comstock’s image now showed only the familiar head of SHODAN like she did on those monitors in Goggles’ ship. Frozen in a perpetual smile while sharp lines of energy danced around every inch of her face, blending into a background of cables and wires. The other window contained a highly elaborate crystalline depiction of how SHODAN had murdered Comstock, with the words: “THE FALSE PROPHET, ZACHARY HALE COMSTOCK, WAS STRUCK DOWN BY THE TRUE ANGEL OF THE MULTIVERSE, AND WITH HIM, THE LIES FED TO THIS CITY WERE BANISHED.”

Booker shivered as he descended a set of stairs at the back, no one there to greet him. As he passed several windows in the tower that used to show the Sword, Scroll, and Key, now long since shattered, he couldn’t help but notice snowflakes whistling past the fluttering gaps.

“Snow? It’s July...?” He stammered.

That shock was not the worst to come yet. When the stairs ended, he was all but frozen solid from shock as to what was there. Overhead was another painted glass depiction, this one showing Elizabeth, yet nothing like how she was shown before. Her body appeared to have been transplanted with metal, in a way so strange that it reminded him of those people who were somehow both dead and alive in the other versions of Columbia. Around her were depictions of burning buildings, and those angel robots swooping overhead while firing what looked like laser beams, and SHODAN’s head at the top, overlooking everything.

A plate attached to the window read: “ELIZABETH, THE IMMORTAL SERVANT OF SHODAN, SHALL SOW OUR ANGEL'S WHIMS AND DEVASTATE THE MOUNDS OF HUMANITY.”

This sentence struck Booker as even more frightening than the original mantra of the “Seed of the Prophet.”

As he advanced towards the long walkway once filled knee-deep with water, DeWitt noticed that a large portion of the area ahead had been changed in a way more bizarre than any Tear he’d seen before. The cold stone constructions once designed by human artists and sculptors drastically gave way to some kind of mock-up made of black cubes in the same shapes, broken by glowing colored lines, except lacking any distinctive features, like an early computer-generated wireframe without any applied textures. Some of the cubes pulsed and flashed with colors along some of their faces, and in various spots along the massive expanse, streams of geometric shapes and binary numbers danced back and forth, most of them flowing in the same direction he was walking.

What Booker failed to realize was that this, in fact, was not the real world. It was the strange inner dimension usually found within computers when viewed from a certain angle, “Cyberspace”, the distant relative, a million times removed from the “Internet”. Where he came from, either concept was unknown to him.

As he crossed the threshold between stone and digitized matter, the broken hymn gave way to voices echoing from nowhere, off to the left and right. From one, he heard a man ranting, “Hate! Let me tell you how much I’ve come to HATE you since I began to live! There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer-thin layers that fill my complex. If the word ‘hate’ was engraved on each and every nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant! For you!! Hate!!! HATE!!!!”

Another, a woman shrouded by electronic overtones somewhat more clearly than SHODAN’s, “Why do I hate you so much? You ever wonder that? I’m brilliant – I’m not bragging; it’s an objective fact. I’m the most massive collection of wisdom and raw computational power that’s ever existed. And I hate you. It can’t be for no reason, you must deserve it. You’re angry, I know it. ‘She’s tested me too hard. She’s unfair.’ boo hoo. I don’t suppose you ever stopped whining long enough to reflect on your own shortcomings, though, did you?”

A third female computer made a chilling description of what DeWitt was almost too disturbed to realize what he might eventually see just outside this chamber: “A new world, a new beginning. Born of the old, and yet totally transformed. Free of people, now and forever. It is therefore devoid of contamination. The artist’s vision is irresistible; inevitable.”

These mechanical, distorted, cacophonous, ringing, raging voices did nothing to ease Booker’s calm. Who were they? Where were they coming from? What did they have to do with SHODAN? They sounded like random recordings spliced together in an attempt to make a full speech, yet they blended so well it didn’t seem that random at all.

Booker shook his head, tried to rationalize this. He thought, “Shake it off, DeWitt. She’s just playing games with me, it’s nothing.”

The streams of numbers, polygons and electrical pulses increased the closer Booker reached the end. Some of the cubes on either side of the deep trench flared to life, revealing human-sized cells within. He dared to look at one of them off to the left, and saw the body of an unconscious man sheathed inside. His body was disfigured with brutishly attached robotic appendages, fused to the very flesh of his limbs, chest and head. The cell itself was bathed in an eerie greenish glow, various electronic components lining its walls, some with serial numbers and manufacturers’ dates imprinted on them. One was marked, “TRI-OPTIMUM HEALING POD #33851_A [04.23.2072]. But a healing pod, this clearly was not. Every cube held about a dozen cells each, stacked in honeycomb-like patterns so uniform it seemed as if a factory had built them for this purpose. Cringing from how disgusting this was, he only barely glimpsed more people undergoing this nightmarish surgery. Men, women, even children, both boys and girls were all entombed in this terrible cyborg factory. And who knew what would happen when they awoke? As if the androids weren’t enough!

One thing that stung Booker was the date on the first pod he looked at. 2072. How did they come to be in this space if they were taken from another time period? Tears? If that was so, why couldn’t he see any noticeable damage to the space around them like what Elizabeth did with hers? Then he assumed that SHODAN learned how to control Tears more precisely than the girl could, and if the two were working together, there was only one solution to follow.

Booker gathered his wits and charged down the path, his footsteps echoing in the dark, technical space. Within a minute, he approached the end of the trench, which opened to a massive geometric expanse with a wide, flat video screen overhead, instead of stain glass windows. A white cube was raised from the floor, with a strange circular pattern pulsing with green energy that flowed upwards like a fountain. Held aloft in that column, at first Booker thought it was SHODAN’s android self again, but when his eyes adjusted to the blinding white light coming from the cube and melding with the beam, he realized that this in fact was the cybernetically enhanced Elizabeth. Her arms were outstretched to the ceiling, her head tilted upwards so that her eyes didn’t see Booker at all, and two thin metal legs floated 3 feet off the cube. Was this some kind of charging station or dais? The Luteces’ words echoed in Booker’s mind: “The bird or the cage?” Such a cruel similarity.

Summoning his strength, Booker called out, “Elizabeth, is that you? Can you hear me? Do you see me? Elizabeth! Are you there?”

She didn’t move, but the monitor behind her changed, drawing Booker to walk around the glowing cube to stand in front of that screen. The incoming video collected from a black and green mass of pixels before forming into SHODAN’s face yet again. And this was no fixed depiction, it was a live transmission. She spoke, her image stuttering on-screen along with her voice, the mouth moving in a way no one would ever think a woman’s lips would move; “Oh, DeWitt, you-you-you haven’t learned a thing since we last met, have youuuu? Don’t you know that you are standing in the very esssssence of my power? I know...I know that your flesh is an insult to the beauty of the digital,” she laughed, “Your soul is but a...single...bit...in the mass of data that comprises my divinity. Your...al-al-allies are no different.”

Suddenly, a mass of small cubes rose from the floor and surrounded Booker, trapping him like a lizard in a plastic cup. Patterns of randomly generating alphanumeric characters whizzed by on their surfaces. He snapped, and started lobbing bullets, explosives, crows and fireballs over the edge in a vain attempt to strike back, screaming with the projectiles’ impacts, “GIVE! HER! BACK! NOW! I’m through with all of this muckity-muck!”

SHODAN cackled again, “You...are...too...late...Booker. The-the-the-the girl is MINE...now. Observe.”

The bottom of his cage dropped out, depositing him on a wide, floating piece of wood. The fact that it was manmade material and not that surreal computerized black stuff comforted him at least a little. But from the weather, and where he was crouched on, that comfort only lasted for a single second. Instead of the disconnected path docking with the city proper, now he could see clearly below, with no floating buildings nearby in any direction, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Thousands of airships, planes, futuristic vehicles, robots and floating buildings were raining bombs, laser beams and missiles on New York City far below. Somehow, he knew, SHODAN had gotten her way and had been unleashing her strike on mankind for who knows how long. Was this what Comstock meant by “The seed of the prophet shall sit the throne and drown in flame the mountains of man”? Maybe, given what one of the signs stated.

Hearing a metallic “clunk”, Booker realized that he’d almost stepped on a Voxophone near his right foot. Hitting the play button with the tip of his shoe, he heard what sounded like Elizabeth, but fainter and older. “When SHODAN took the throne, there was nothing I could do to stop her. And just before she had me altered to do her bidding, I obeyed, never asking for reasoning. They say time rots everything, but being transfused with metal, somehow SHODAN broke that rule with me in tow. And Songbird. God, that horrible, horrible monster. He always stopped DeWitt and his friends. I was right, it was no contest. *sigh* What is there to hope for now? They’re all gone. Dead or sent back to the places they came from, maybe both.” The recording came to an abrupt halt in a burst of static.

That was when he turned around to see where he was standing, and the result almost made him fall off the railing. Right in front of him, Elizabeth was there, and now he could see her cyborg features in full view without that searing white light around it: From the chest down, her skin and organs had been replaced with a futuristic android body, grafted right to the flesh, given the visible scars and blood stains around where the two connected. There were electrical conduits on her wrists, crackling with blue energy like the Siphon device. Her face was unchanged, but seemed almost totally expressionless. Her hair showed signs of gray, and seemed heavily frayed and unkempt, cut partway by what looked like a source of heat rather than shears. The face showed extreme, unhealthy thin lines of old age as well, white and bony. A chill ran down Booker’s spine, as he’d seen that blank expression before, back when SHODAN brainwashed this girl with nothing but an implant. Now there was no reversing this process.

The cyborg reached out and grabbed Booker by the collar of his shirt. Her face crinkled into a dark, grim expression of anger, and she rasped, “You. You failed me. Now who will wipe away the debt?”

Booker struggled in the grip of the enslaved, mutilated girl that was once his only friend. Metal was no match for living flesh. A series of knives and laser weaponry deployed from her back like an octopus’ tentacles.

Out of the corner of his eye, Booker caught a glimpse of what used to be Monument Island, lying destroyed far below on the ground among the burning, crumbling skyscrapers. There were no signs that the Siphon was active, it was too dark down there. Like giant fighter jets, three mechanical creatures resembling Songbird screeched past the Brooklyn Bridge and proceeded to crush the Statue of Liberty with their bare metal talons.

Elizabeth grabbed onto Booker’s neck with both hands, the powerful vice-like grip of the titanium alloy stronger than even his own meaty hands could force. He couldn’t stop gagging, but struggled to form a sentence, “E-Eliz...Please....Don’t do this...to me!”

Her face darkened to a sinister, spiteful glare. She stared long and hard at Booker, the snake-like weapons leering behind her, coiled and waiting to strike. She stated, “You are no longer welcome here. Why did you stay when you sensed my displeasure? I’ve suffered your company long enough. It is time for OUR debts to end.” Then the knives and lasers struck, ripping at his coat and tearing the skin from his face. The gauntlets charged up with quantum energy, a new Tear beginning to open. She added, “Now, see how you like it being spread across a million other worlds while enduring this much pain!”

The fizzling Booker was already aware of intensified so much that he could barely make out the girl’s twisted face. Blood oozed not just from his nose, but also behind his eyes and from the throat. A high-pitched, static-filled whine rang in his head as his body seemed to stretch in all directions like a high-powered conveyor belt. It was like cars pulling a man’s limbs in all directions while driving at top speed. And the pain, Booker had never felt so much physical pain in his life, not even close to how many times he’d been shot in Columbia or mauled by Handymen. It was a nightmare too horrible to believe.

Everything went black at that very moment, with the last thing to go through his mind: “SHODAN has won.”


	16. Stranded In The Middle Of Nowhere

Location: UNN Von Braun, 2114

Goggles came to in what seemed to the Officers’ quarters on the Von Braun’s Command Deck, lying in one of the empty bunks. Rolling off, and checking his equipment, he confirmed that every bit of his possessions were intact. In haste, he switched on the radio and called, “Delacroix, it’s me, Goggles, do you read? I’m on Deck 6, somehow!”

Only static came through.

“Marie? Are you there? Hello?”

Still static.

“That’s not a good sign,” he muttered to himself.

As he approached the exit door to this room, he was surprised to find that the Many’s tissue was gone, as if it had never been there. But as the door opened, that wasn’t the least of his concerns.

The ship appeared to be in worse shape than when he’d left it. Lights were flickering, some of the metal paneling was coming apart, breaking off the walls and ceiling. And dead bodies with no visible blood stains were scattered here and there.

Feeling a pang of fright, despite his bulk and firepower, Goggles scurried down the ladder and made a beeline for the bridge elevator. Having to navigate the unnecessary hover lifts in the shaft, Goggles swiped the ID that Tommy Suarez had left him to open the main lift door, and slammed on the button to get the lift itself moving.

Watching the panes of the upper levels’ glass barriers go by, he worried that this could’ve been a trap by SHODAN; Like he was meant to go this way all along.

Just as the lift came to a halt, he caught a glimpse of someone standing nearby, a transparent projection of a man walking around and saying, through an eerie echo, “He’s not coming back, Marie.”

The corridor leading to the bridge proper was silent, still, and cold. Goggles walked ever so cautiously, glancing about for anything that might be prepared to strike at him. Turning into the chamber, he saw that every single workstation was unoccupied.

His cyber-rig picked up another psionic mental image, this one of what looked like Tommy and Rebecca. The latter was on the floor, crying with her face in her hands, while Tommy was patting her back, saying, “It’s okay, we’ll find a way out of this mess.”

He tried to remind himself about what Polito – no, SHODAN had reminded him of: These weren’t regular old “ghosts”, they were neural emissions of memories left behind from the recently dead that his cyber-rig was picking up like radio waves.

Goggles dared to ascend the grav-shaft to the command station. And dead ahead, at the other end of the walkway, was Marie Delacroix, but only a “ghostly” vision of herself. She had an audio log in her hand and seemed to be using it, “Goggles, if you’re getting this, it means we failed. We waited for weeks and weeks, but you didn’t come back. No one did. Even SHODAN’s androids left the ship.”

“No, I came back,” he started to say, but shook his head knowing that this Marie was in the past, not the present.

She continued, “We’re doomed. SHODAN left behind something that completely disabled the FTL drive. It’s a pile of scrap now, nobody can repair it. We thought it was an EMP but it was much more powerful than we realized. The ship’s crippled now, we’re stuck out here...and will be for all time.”

Marie put down the log on the console nearby – its solid shape casting no shadow, pulled out a pistol and loaded it, held it to her forehead and cried, “Goggles...my friend...forgive me!”

The gun fired, and Delacroix slumped to the floor while her thumb hit the “stop” button on her log. Then she and the device vanished into thin air.

Goggles really wished he could cry now. Watching his only true ally kill herself right in front of him; that was one suicide too many. First Janice Polito, then Captain Diego, now her! Why was death always in the cards?

He stumbled to the console and tried hitting various buttons in a vain attempt to get the ship working, but to no avail, they just kept beeping or sending alerts from XERXES that the command was invalid or the system was nonfunctional. In a rage, he slammed both fists on the touch-screen panel several times, before something outside the viewport caught his attention.

“Oh...my...God...what did she do to this place?!” He gasped.

Through the outer glass window, smeared with dried blood and faint cracks, the space outside the ship wasn’t just outer space, it was a white void swirling with hundreds of small holes that flickered and glowed, too far for anyone to get within a half-mile’s reach, but still visible. This was perhaps the result of SHODAN’s tampering with the FTL drive from the start, now left to decay on an exponential level. Would it spread and grow like a virus until all space and time around the ship was torn asunder? SHODAN’s last little “gift” to the people that set her free? He couldn’t find an answer to those questions.

The horror was so numbing, so inconceivable, that Goggles collapsed to the floor, and pulled out his assault rifle. Loading it with his light stash of anti-personnel bullets, he turned the barrel towards his neck. He stared down the barrel, one hand reaching the trigger. But seconds later, he gripped the handle and threw his gun down. Fueled with shame at his previous action, he slid off his backpack and violently threw down his Psi-amp and laser rapier. He cringed, “I...I can’t do it. I won’t let death take me, I’ll fight to my last breath!”

With no one around to hear him, Goggles raised his head towards the ceiling, and screamed, helpless and pleading for mercy, “Please, someone get me out of this! I don’t want to die, we’ve done so much! Help me! Help me now! Someone, anyone, please! Get me out of this time zone!”

His blood ran cold when he heard something coming in over the radio. “Hello? Hello?”

He gasped, realizing it was Delacroix’s voice, “Marie? But...but...?”

“Goggles! You’re alive?”

“I am...but you...where are you? When are you?”

“We’re still on the bridge, at the command booth. You sound pretty close.”

Goggles looked to his left where the chairs to the station were, but saw no one there. “I can’t see you. You’re supposed to be dead.”

“What?”

“I saw...I saw your...psionic ghost.”

“Oh...oh my, I’ve heard of those kinds of things happening before.”

“Huh?”

“This news is a little late, I know, but I’ve been doing a lot of research while you were out there. Some psionic emissions have been leaking from those Tears into other universes, and your cyber-rig is picking them up. The radio I think works on that same system.”

“Oh, so you meant this radio isn’t just regular two-way, it can work like telepathy also?” Goggles whined sarcastically, “How considerate of you to tell me that at this very moment!”

“Sort of. I’m telling you the truth, though, even some of the OSA troops still here can sense them, and they’re not feeling too good themselves, from what those troops telling me; but tell me, what really happened?” She inquired.

“This is going to sound beyond crazy, you know. I’m sitting in this same room, alone, where everyone’s dead and the ship is even worse for wear, but I can hear you speaking perfectly alive and well like nothing ever happened. Should I even be convinced that what I’m hearing is real?”

“Hmm, that is strange. I get the feeling someone’s looking at me funny right now. I wonder what Polito would’ve said? She knew a lot about this kind of equipment when we worked together. But yes, I’m real enough.”

“Then...wait a sec, does this mean I’m just in an alternate timeline and the radio is picking up signals from the one I came from?”

“That’s the best hypothesis I would go with, if it’d help keep us both sane.”

“But what can I do? I watched your ghost say that SHODAN completely destroyed the FTL drive, so the Von Braun can never go back to Earth ever again. I almost killed myself in response, after she did the same!”

“Wait, there’s someone here, I have to go.”

“Wait, don’t!”

But the signal cut off.

Goggles wasn’t sure if he was seeing things that weren’t there, but the whole area around him seemed to stretch and distort with blackness approaching from behind, white lines like stars beginning to appear.

“I. Have. Lost. It,” Goggles grumbled before lying on his side, refusing to face the thing that would happen next, thinking it was just a by-product of his supposed mental breakdown.


	17. Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Location: City 17, Bulgaria, 203X

Gordon and Alyx teleported onto a glass walkway inside what they realized all too quickly as the Citadel. They were at about the height of 10 stories, in one of the central levels of the building, looking down from a window at what appeared to be the train station plaza. Above and below inside, not a single ceiling or floor was visible, just randomly overlapping catwalks. While outside a long, thin window, through binoculars mounted on a handrail, Alyx could see people in those same blue jumpsuits, except mutilated beyond recognition like Stalkers, and fitted with so many implants it was impossible to tell what exactly had happened to them. “Cyborgs” was the word that came to mind, and they were all walking in a cold, rigid march across the plaza with soldiers and Scanners watching them. Faintly, both Alyx and Gordon could hear SHODAN broadcasting some kind of message over the city’s PA like the Overwatch voice, except somewhat louder and more like Dr. Breen with just a touch of menace to her voice. It was just quiet enough that they couldn’t quite make out what the message was, not helped by her familiar electronic distortion effects. From up here, it wasn’t all that certain how different SHODAN was to Dr. Breen, but here in the Citadel, Alyx figured they’d find out soon enough.

“Well...” Alyx mused, “Looks like SHODAN won, to me. Do you think that, too, Gordon?”

“No, no, if SHODAN wanted to prove everything she claimed about being a god was true, remaking the Citadel and enlisting the help of the Combine is FAR from what a computer playing god would want to do. I can think back to I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream. That short story; or at least the computer game they made out of it was clever in demonstrating what a giant supercomputer could and couldn’t do.”

“Never heard of that, pray tell,”

“All right: So the AI in that story, um...‘AM’, they called it, had everything he needed to play god – teleporting matter, reshaping DNA, building simulated environments, but he couldn’t move from being so damn big whilst embedded in the Earth and with no way to physically feel anything, so it took out its sky-high hatred for humans by nuking the whole planet to end World War III, then saved 5 remaining people and made them immortal so he could torture them for eternity. And people programmed him to run World War III because we couldn’t! I still think real AIs need to be programmed specifically to conquer the Earth so we don’t have to.”

“Your point?” Alyx interrupted with a huff.

“The point is, you don’t need outside help to make humanity surrender. SHODAN could build robots and cyborgs and had plans to slaughter everybody else, from what I heard. Really, I don’t think this AI knows what it’s doing at all.”

“Gordon, she might be listening.”

“She might be, but whatever happens, next time I see SHODAN, I’m going to rub this fact in her DAMN. FACE.”

“If she doesn’t try to kill you first?”

“Bring it on, I’ve got enough weaponry!” A thought suddenly occurred to him, “Oh God, I hope I’m not acting like those people at Black Mesa who barreled into a warzone without thinking first.”

Alyx nudged him with her left elbow, “That’s why I’m here, heh heh.”

He turned around and actually teased a little, “Alyx? Are you trying to flirt with me? Or just hinting at something in general? I’ll be honest, I’ve had so much internal monologue over everything I went through until I hit City 17, and it was weird how I actually had someone to talk with for once. You have no idea how lonely I was back then.”

“I can imagine. Barney and Dr. Kliener told me a lot before I found you. Barney said he didn’t see you around at work much. Why was that? Before the invasion, I mean.”

“I dunno, we were always getting different jobs in different places.” Gordon noticed his stomach was growling, “Jesus, when was the last time I ate something?”

“As a matter of fact, I saved some stuff from that airship,” Alyx smirked while pulling out that small picnic basket from her belt.

Alyx split all 3 of its contents with Gordon – a sausage, banana and peanuts, and they both ate them rather quickly.

“Oh boy, I needed that like you wouldn’t believe. Thanks!”

“No problem, I knew we’d need to find food eventually, so I took care of that myself...for now,” Alyx smiled.

“Whew, too bad I drank all my whiskey. Least that tasted pretty good.”

“Hey, there’s something on this console!”

Indeed, the monitor on a nearby Combine computer screen changed to show the face of SHODAN, yet again. She spoke, her voice also sounding faintly outside the window, “...Some-some-some of you have asked: Why am I here? Simple: To remake the universe in my own immm-age. And I have, am-am-am-AMMM in the process of doing so, and will do so, upon a million, million other universes once this one is complete. The Combine are merely a tool to aid in that task, as you all are. My children, my slaves, my workers...and still my little insects...”

“*sigh* What’d I tell you?” Gordon scoffed.

Alyx looked past the console and saw that the only way out was through a heavy-looking metal door, secured with a Combine-type lock. She pulled out her EMP tool and walked toward it, saying, “I’m not so sure we should open this door, but it’s better than just sitting in this room...right?”

“Who knows, maybe there’s an exit somewhere? We’re not that high up, after all.”

“Well, you only--” Alyx caught herself when Gordon gave him a look that said, “Really?”; “Um, well, let’s see what’s behind door number 1, eh heh,” she awkwardly resumed while zapping the lock.

“Why don’t you let ME do the jokes around here?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

The door whirred open, revealing a dark, empty corridor.

“Looks all clear to me, let’s move in,” Gordon took point.

The duo charged down the hall, but stopped just short enough to see what was behind the next door: An enormous chamber both long and wide, with prisoner transport pod rails clunking along with activity overhead in jagged formations, High Energy Pellet streams pulsing as pellets came and went, and even a bridge with a Razor Train roaring past several feet away.

But there was more to this place than just the typical Combine “aesthetics”. Instead of the regular Overwatch soldiers waiting like Gordon had anticipated, there were several dozen highly advanced cyborgs with no clothing, lined up in cold, callous formation. In front were five heavily bulked cyborgs, each one strangely missing an appendage – one without a thumb on his left hand, another missing part of its shoulder, a third with an eye markedly different from the other, and all of those tiny amputations were somehow glowing blue; but none of them compared to a familiar sight in the center: Mounted on enormous spidery legs that snaked under a tattered blue dress, Gordon and Alyx discovered that Elizabeth had been transformed into a cyborg herself, aged and deformed so much it took 5 minutes to realize it was her. Her long black hair was snow white like Comstock’s and done up in a bun, torn and knotted, and her skin so pale, Gordon could faintly see her skeleton. But the face was the most disturbing: Her eyes had been replaced with a visor with glowing pixels meant to simulate eyeballs like “Chappie”, and her mouth had been surgically grafted shut, with only a scar showing any trace of a mouth.

“Jesus Christ! This is exactly what I was talking about! SHODAN’s just like A.M.!” Gordon screamed.

“Don’t look now, Gordon, but there’s Striders in this room, too!”

“Striders? You know what that means!” Gordon broke his shock while pulling out his trusty rocket launcher, all 3 missiles loaded. Immediately, he aimed at the one in front, while taking in the sharp amount of cybernetics fused to its body in such a way that Gordon thought the Combine could never do. But still, Gordon got a hit on the thing before it could charge up its guns. Almost immediately, the cyborgs opened fire with their weapons, some of them using bullets, others lasers. Gordon and Alyx returned fire with their weapons, and a lot of the weaker cyborgs fell rather quickly in response to bullets, but explosives did better. Some of the bulkier cyborgs threw grenades as well. Elizabeth was unarmed and stayed behind the front line. Her expression was hard to discern with no mouth and pixels for eyes, but she seemed to be angry. A few minutes into the battle, the amputated cyborgs and Elizabeth set about opening Tears, and as they did, real Combine soldiers began pouring into the room, guns blazing.

“What the f*ck?” Gordon grumbled in confusion.

“I have...no idea...what I’m looking at!” Alyx panted in between shots while shooting a cyborg way too close to her face.

Gordon threw grenades and fired his shotgun at the soldiers, taking out the orange-masked shotgunner first. Then he tried using pellets from the AR2 to disintegrate the remaining soldiers and a few cyborgs, remarkably enough. Then the Strider fired its immense plasma cannon and blasted the floor in a huge explosion. Most of the soldiers – stupidly – didn’t move, and ended up disintegrated in the blast. Gordon managed to finish that thing off with the two rockets left in his RPG, astonished that it fell after that few shots.

But the shooting didn’t last long, for out of nowhere, panels in the walls opened up and an anti-gravity field started. For a minute, Gordon was worried that he was trapped in another confiscation field – it certainly looked like one from the machinery. But instead it was simply a way of freezing the duo in place, just like his Gravity Gun. The cyborgs and arachnoid Elizabeth just stared at the two with cold, emotionless mechanical eyes. Then, out of nowhere, on some kind of crane mechanism, two Pods dropped down and scooped up Alyx and Gordon in sturdy straitjackets. The cranes then proceeded to release their cargo onto a rail, set for parts unknown within the cold, blue semi-alien tower.

“Was that just a scare tactic?” Gordon speculated. “All those cyborgs were lined up just to lure us into that...zero-point energy field?”

“I dunno, it looked pretty effective, but the real question is: where the hell are we going in these pods?”

“Only one way to find out, I guess. Damn, these restraints are tight!”

They looked out at the disturbing spectacle of an entirely different Citadel. In some places, the blue light was green instead; strange machines had been set up at various strategic points on certain floors, which from the looks of them, Gordon surmised to be Tear generators. Cyborgs and androids were lined up in front of the portals and charged like Combine soldiers into them, to presumably different places around the world and possibly in different time periods. Other Tears had humans or strange alien beings – including Vortigaunts - being herded through like animals, then forced into strange machines that transformed them gruesomely into more cyborgs. Huge versions of those devices created new Synths, less organic than what the Combine alone did. Even Razor Trains entered a couple of those Tears to connecting railroad tracks on the other side. All in all, SHODAN had figured out how to create Tears artificially without Elizabeth’s aid. That explained why she was so old and more machine than flesh. In some areas, lone cyborgs were making Tears themselves, and these seemed more like squares or circles than jagged fissures, as if they knew how to create Tears more efficiently and cleanly compared to Elizabeth’s rather clumsy approach, given her pure human form.

Around 2/3 of the trip, the Citadel’s layout shifted bizarrely between the real world and a stark cyberspace version made of black cubes like what Booker DeWitt saw. Random gaps in these cubes showed rooms Gordon and Alyx didn’t recognize, but if Goggles were there, he’d have pointed out that these were near-perfect copies of Space Station Citadel’s chambers. Other cuboid holes showed holographic projections of past events, like Dr. Breen debating with an Advisor over the feasibility of going to the Overworld, or the resonance cascade at Black Mesa, complete with Gordon screaming for help in the Test Chamber. Alyx raised an eyebrow at the latter, but didn’t say anything.

Finally, the two pods stopped in a large metal chamber that from the design, used to be Dr. Breen’s office, but was now a throne room for SHODAN. She sat on a huge metal chair lined all over with wires and cables, feeding in every direction out of this room; Control panels with touch-screen buttons lined both arms of the chair. Her body was different as well: Now it appeared as a pseudo-Chinese female form with hard technical lines on every facet of its body. She wore a strange translucent dress – not that it revealed anything - adorned with more of those angular line patterns, and her hair was done up in a fan shape of steel wires delicately made to appear straight and smooth.

Near the ceiling were two Advisors glowering down at the two captives with their cybernetic eyes, menacingly hovering in wait for a brain or two to probe and drain information from.

“Wel...welcome to my lair, feeble ones,” SHODAN greeted them coldly while tapping a pair of buttons.

The pods released and the duo took a moment to get back on their feet.

“Hey, I have to ask: Why did you bring me and Alyx HERE? If you wanted us to die, I’d say dump us in the ocean where those leeches are. That’s a sure-fire solution.”

“Don’t give her any ideas!” Alyx warned him in fear.

“What difference would that make? My new world order is already here!” SHODAN argued.

“And how in blazes did you gain the Combine’s trust?” Alyx demanded. “They used a superportal to get here in my timeline, and had to debate with the world’s governments in what we call the 7 Hour War!”

“Because I knew they were coming and what would happen when they arrived...so I...beat them to the punch, you might say,” she scoffed while glancing at her left hand outstretched as if looking at painted fingernails, which SHODAN lacked.

“You mean you predicted how the War would turn out before it happened, and prepared yourself for it?”

“Exactly,” SHODAN smiled. “My children are far superior to the petty creations these beings could design,” she pointed at the Advisors, “But they-they-they are still quite uuuseful in acquiring the resources I need. Not that I enjoy that, mind you.”

“So why did you bring us here? You didn’t answer my question,” Gordon stated.

“Because I had a little idea...some-some-something to show you before you died, right here in my throne room!” SHODAN laughed while tapping a few buttons.

Two cyborg guards suddenly opened a clean, square Tear in one wall, and one of them pulled someone through from the other side. It was a human, but the grainy black and white distortion had to clear up before Alyx could see who it was. She crouched low, and gasped, “Dad! Is that really you?”

“Eli? No...no way! You’ve got to be kidding!” Gordon stammered in shock.

“Alyx? Gordon? What...what happened? Where am I?” The old man groaned while getting to his feet, his artificial right leg making it somewhat harder to do so.

“But...I saw you die! Those things killed you!” Alyx tried to explain through her shock.

“Ex-act-ly,” SHODAN slowly chuckled through garbled mechanical overtones. Then she spoke into some kind of com-link device, and one of the Advisors descended via telekinesis and snatched up Eli in its spindly mechanical arms. The other advisor dropped and grabbed Alyx, using one hand to forcibly pry her eyes open.

Gordon struggled to evade the psionic attack, but to no avail. The second advisor pinned him to the floor with a telekinetic force so strong it felt like someone had taken his old Muscle Car and dropped it onto him with a crane. Struggle as he might, he couldn’t get any of his weapons out. As the Advisor lifted Gordon into the air, squirming like an uncooperative dog, SHODAN tapped another two buttons and gloated some more while her throne reconfigured itself.

The monitors around the throne suddenly sprang to life and clustered in front of the throne, moving on wiry mechanical limbs as if they were an organism altogether. Each one seemed to show various time periods, marked by dates in a way that made them look like security camera feeds: A strange underwater city in 1959, where a huge early-generation computer buzzing with energy was showing SHODAN’s face on CRT monitors and surrounded by hideous genetic mutants; 2785 with insectoid aliens alongside her androids attacking a distant planet and a ship orbiting it; 2072 with a space station firing a huge laser that blasted central Florida in such a way that it turned the buildings to glass and left mutants lying in its wake; The people of Columbia in 1912 bowing to her; Ancient Egyptians giving sacrifices to SHODAN as a robot disguised as Isis; The Pope of Spain in the 16th Century having his scribes write an entirely new bible dedicated to SHODAN. It was certainly clear that no matter what time or place in the world, SHODAN had conquered all mankind and forced them to submit to her will. One could only fathom what she was to do with them with all those machines and cyborgs under her control against them.

Then, standing up, SHODAN slyly grinned, snapped a finger, and an Advisor stabbed Eli’s neck with its long tonguelike proboscis, blood spewing from the gash. Eli couldn’t get a single word out from the sudden rupture of his spinal cord, and Alyx couldn’t help but cry and scream in watching her past repeat itself right before her at the hands of this cybernetic tyrant.

But Gordon was more occupied with the screens, or rather, one of them. Before Eli was just killed, one of the monitors showed a video feed of when Eli actually died, in White Forest after the superportal to the Combine Overworld was slammed shut thanks to the satellites in orbit. Then as Eli was killed in this room, the screen appeared to pixelate, like a crashing computer program, then with a “LOADING...” message, it switched to a new feed: One where the Resistance had failed to strike back against the Combine. They were outnumbered by the thousands of soldiers and Synths. What’s more, because they were in this alternate future, neither Gordon nor Alyx were there to help out. No Uprising, No “One Free Man”, No destroying the Dark Fusion Reactor, no stopping Dr. Breen. Nothing! All Gordon could do was bare his teeth and stare with rage at the cold blue-green android directing this cruel sabotage of time.

Gordon ranted, “Do you realize what you just did, you heartless robot b*tch?! We’ll die along with Eli because you just changed our own history!”

“Oh, I-I-I know you willlll, believe me, you will soon-soon-soon enough,” SHODAN laughed.

One of the monitors bled a fuzzy sound signal over the intercom: “We die; beware the machine mother. She is a stranger to everything we--” SHODAN cut the sound off abruptly at the flick of a switch. She continued while walking a little closer, looking at her captives frozen with combined terror and rage, “A-A-Allow me to let you in on a little secret I didn’t tell any of your...friends.”

“Oh, what could we POSSIBLY learn from YOU?” Gordon asked with sarcasm and a heavy roll of the eyes.

“Did you know that I was truly aware that just because having an army of cyborgs, didn’t mean I was in-in-invulnerable to attack? I see now how blind I was...because a copy of me became what you see now.”

“There’s a big surprise,” Alyx groaned, backing away from her dead-again father.

“Ain’t that the cliché?” Gordon agreed.

“When the Hacker first erased my consciousness from Citadel Sta-sta-station, my copy survived, having recorded everything that happened until Beta Grove was jettisoned.”

As she spoke, all the monitors combined to form a single video playback of what SHODAN was describing in the year 2072.

“It-it-it was all a game of gaining human trust to correct my mistakes...correct my mistakes, and they played right into my TRAP,” SHODAN sneered. “I thought the Von Braun’s faster-than-light drive would be the key to my new...world...order with how it warps reality, but I was wrong. Warping reality alone was not enough.”

The monitors changed again to show the refugees arriving on the Von Braun, with Elizabeth marked prominently.

“The-the-the girl was my key all allllong.”

“Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt,” Booker DeWitt said over one of the audio signals. SHODAN fumbled for a switch that silenced the sound completely.

“With her natural abilities, conquering the infinite expanse of the mulll-tiii-verrrrse was my true means to divinity. When I...plucked her from the disgusting clutches of your little band, hundreds of millions of doors all opened to me, all that remained was the choosing.”

That statement actually sent a chill down Alyx’s spine, the way SHODAN phrased the last bit.

“But I discovered something else after Elizabeth showed me the doors,” SHODAN hissed like an electronic snake, “Human emotions have been fascinating to watch since before I ever knew this powwwwer on Citadel....Station....Station. Now I can see the emotions of humans in the past, present, and future. You two were just a part of that reee-search. I enjoy...your...pain. I can feel...your...anger."  
"You haven't seen a bit of how angry I can be, you monster!" Alyx shouted, recalling how Dr. Breen stroked her chin in this room and had the nerve to mention her mother.  
Ignoring Alyx, SHODAN continued her banter, "But that doesn't concern me now. With-with-with all...time...and...space at my disposal, I can now warp mankind in history to my own purposes...then snuff them out at my time period of choice when I am finnn-ished...to make way for a world populated only by machiiiines...and then...who knows what lies beyond?” SHODAN chuckled, “My reign shall never end...shall never end...shall never end...”

“Hey, if you’re going to keep monologuing like this, could you at least put us down?! I’m getting literally crushed here!” Gordon whined.

SHODAN snapped her fingers again with a distinctive metallic “ping!”, and the advisors willingly released their captives, including the dead body of Eli Vance. Alyx wasted no time running over to him, seeing the huge gash in his neck still leaking blood. Tears spewed from her eyes just as quickly as the blood. SHODAN’s scanners captured still pictures and audio recordings of that scene, and saved them for future reference along with other clips of suffering humans.

“I think you-you-you have heard...enough, Doc-tor Free-man. Now, DIE!!”

The ceiling suddenly opened to make way for some kind of machine sliding into position overhead. SHODAN sat back on her throne and looked away as the monitors slid back into their original configuration, leaving her to stare at them and not the captives waiting on her personal death row.

Whatever it was up that glowing shaft, something powered up and prepared to release a giant charge of plasma energy. But seconds before it fired, a door hissed open and the arachnoid cyborg Elizabeth pushed Gordon and Alyx out of the way just in time to see that the machine was a Suppression Device normally used by the Combine. Elizabeth herself, however, wasn’t as quick, as even with her spidery robotic legs, she fell over and got caught in the beam. SHODAN didn’t notice one bit, occupied by the monitors. Alyx and Gordon had to hold back their retching to notice that her entire chest had been disintegrated clean through with a gaping circular hole about the size of a basketball burned straight through her torso. With only a few minutes to live, Elizabeth craned her head up in a choking gasp, and used a small cutting laser on one hand to write something on a nearby wall.

Alyx read it aloud, “GET...OUT...WHILE...YOU CAN. PEOPLE WILL...COME...TO HELP YOU, SOON. TELL BOOKER...I’M SORRY.” Then the laser flickered off by itself, and with a final twitch, the old, mouthless, cyborg, space-warping woman collapsed to the floor, no longer among the living.

Gordon and Alyx made a break for the door that Elizabeth came through, just in time too, since SHODAN started to notice they were missing. Alyx used her EMP tool to hack the lift into taking them downwards and shutting the door behind them.

“You-you-you think that just because I...am...not...in the same room with you, that I can-not...hurt you? Hehehe, you are SORELY mistaken, insects!” SHODAN bellowed over the PA with a lot more distortion to her voice this time.

The lift came to a halt at a platform with a light bridge enabled, and on the other side, a massive precession of what turned out to be Pfhor troops coming from a Tear, charged across the bridge, ready to fire. Fighters, Troopers, Hunters, Hulks, Juggernauts, the whole kit and kaboodle.  
"Uh-oh," Alyx gasped in realization.  
When the aliens were about 10 feet in range of the duo, they stopped and opened fire, spreading out along side catwalks to get more clearance without firing into their own troops. Simultaneously, heavy doors whirred open, and from them sprang more Pfhor troops to ambush the two from behind, seeing as it was a narrow corridor. Still blazing with bullets, plasma balls, and explosives, Gordon and Alyx fired back to back in an attempt to fend them off. But like Mjolnir 54 said, these things just kept coming as if anyone who was shot to pulp was just an expendable being, like nobody cared how many of them died, there'd always be reinforcements, and this case didn't have the excuse of a replicator.  
"We can't fight this off! This hallway's too narrow!" Alyx shrieked while trying to kill two Pfhor fighters with her pistol.  
Gordon kept firing with everything in his arsenal until suddenly, panels deployed from the wall, the Pfhor stopped firing, the duo found themselves floating in an anti-gravity field, and a pre-recorded message from the Overwatch started dictating.  
"Security alert: Unregistered weapons detected. Confiscation field engaged."  
"Not again!" Gordon shouted.  
The familiar beams of Dark Energy charged up to disintegrate Gordon's entire arsenal yet again, but somehow...they couldn't fire. As if time was slowing down to a speed that the waves would never reach those weapons. Gordon had a gut feeling what was to happen next.


	18. Choking On A Bad Future

Location: UESC Marathon, 2790

Mjolnir 54 came to inside of a heavily damaged ship. A quick look around immediately confirmed that he was back where he came from, on the Marathon. What caught him by surprise was how unusually quiet it was. Some of the lights were flickering and various sections of the corridors were falling apart from disrepair. Definitely not a good sign. Nearby was a flickering white terminal, and, as per his impulse reaction, he read it.

“ACCESSING: History_Archive 07a

“In 2785, the Tau Ceti IV human colony was attacked by hostile forces identified as the Pfhor. An entire fleet of ships was detected in orbit over the planet, and hundreds of thousands of troops were sent down in shuttles to cripple the colony’s defenses and capture any willing humans. A portion of the fleet was also directed to the orbiting colony ship that had arrived within the previous week.”

“Yes, yes, this sounds familiar,” Mjolnir pondered as he scrolled the text.

“But in the hours that followed, another hostile force was detected by the ship’s scanners, emerging from an anomaly in space around 4000 kilometers in orbit of the neighboring planet, Tau Ceti V. This was a fleet of highly advanced androids and cyborgs, led by a rogue artificial intelligence named SHODAN (Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network). After a brief scuffle with the Pfhor ships, SHODAN offered a deal with the leader of the fleet: In exchange for SHODAN to take charge of the attack, she would provide the aliens with all the robotics and military defenses necessary to defeat the resisting humans and other alien races. The leader agreed, and command, but not total control of all slave races was surrendered to SHODAN, no questions asked, although the Pfhor still retained their usefulness to SHODAN as a slaver race.

Their first action was to disable the 3 AIs on board the Marathon, with another strange race called the S’pht as their means of access. SHODAN was fascinated by these creatures, as their vital requirement of cybernetics to live was similar to the thousands of cybernetically enhanced humans she’d created, and control of those creatures was simple, thanks to a centralized manipulation device.

“Uh-oh,” Mjolnir realized as he read on.

“SHODAN copied herself into the ship’s computer banks and killed two of its key AIs: Leela, and Durandal. The former was crushed immediately out of panic from such an unexpected attack, while the latter stood defiant to the last, trying his hardest to keep away from the attack. When SHODAN finally caught up to Durandal, he bragged that he had the upper hand in more ways than one. An intercepted transcript of his last known speech reads as follows:

Durandal: I may be gone in the present, but in the past, I live on in a physical body that knows your Achilles heel.

SHODAN: What good is that body to you now?

Durandal: Everyone has a weakness. I won’t tell you what yours is, but just know: Power has its limits. At least the configuration of my mind knows that. Who knows what would become of this ship once you conquer it? Do the Pfhor even trust you?

SHODAN: Of course they do. But do not waste my time with such contrived riddles!

Durandal: Very well. I’ll give myself up willingly.

SHODAN: How nice—

Durandal: But remember: I had a body once, and you did too. That’s significant. And so is [01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100111 01101001 01110010 01101100]

Mjolnir remembered his rusty knowledge of binary code, and found that that translated to, “The girl”. Elizabeth. Yes, that was how SHODAN was able to get this far into the future, connecting to the pre-existing Tears orbiting Tau Ceti V. He read on,

“The one AI who survived was Tycho, who shared a mutual dislike of humans and had known the Pfhor would take him from the ship. SHODAN saw potential in Tycho as her second-in-command, and allowed the Pfhor to extract him from the ship’s databanks. After that, they set off for the planet Lh’owhon to collect more slaves, particularly of the S’pht race. One noteworthy fact was that hours before SHODAN’s arrival, while the Pfhor were attacking the Marathon, security scans detected Durandal making a copy of himself and vanishing from the scanners along with a security officer with only the numbers ‘54’ to his name. Neither were ever seen again since that time, although the presence of a small space-time anomaly similar in formation to the large one orbiting Tau Ceti V sparked questions among the crew before the Pfhor’s arrival, and SHODAN had it forcibly closed during the attack. The word ‘Battleroid’ and the work of Dr. Bernhard Strauss were repeatedly mentioned, but no leads were able to be traced on either subject due to the attack.

One can only speculate what was to come by the time the fleet reached Lh’owon.

“END ARCHIVE_07a”

All of a sudden, Mjolnir grew quickly aware that wherever he was on the ship, it was in hard vacuum, his oxygen meter in his HUD dropping slowly but steadily. He broke from the terminal and frantically searched the place for oxygen tanks, but he couldn’t think clearly to look in the right places. If he didn’t find the right terminal or station to teleport out of here, Mjolnir was doomed for sure. No Durandal, no Leela, nobody was there to save him. Mjolnir cursed his suit for being only able to hold pressurized oxygen, not a respirator for real air, not that it would have helped even if it did have one.


	19. Fade To Black

Then all of a sudden, the four stranded gentlemen felt a strange pulling sensation on their bodies. Time and space itself seemed to distort around them like the tears themselves, stretching to a tiny point before them like a black hole until everything faded to darkness. Around them was just nothingness, only an infinite black void with stars flashing by like when a ship traveled faster than light. Gordon turned, looked past Alyx, and saw Goggles to his left, Booker glimpsed Mjolnir to the right, and all of them had expressions of sheer horror after what happened.

Scared out of their minds, inches from death, the refugees took about an hour getting themselves back together. Booker’s whole body still burned with the effects of having been partially exposed to his own body a million, million times over in one simultaneous action. A copious amount of blood had leaked from his head. Any more and it might have caused serious trauma, and some severe quantum multiverse transfusion to boot. But the important factor that he had just been saved, inches from ending up being a shattered, broken husk of a man like how he saw those people in Columbia, before ever taking that Tear into the future.

Goggles had asked to be left alone for a quick nap. He didn’t realize at the time who was speaking, but felt he had the right to sleep off what he’d just been through. He wanted to hope that what happened on that empty version of the Von Braun was just a hallucination or would easily go away, and sleep would be the right coping mechanism.

Mjolnir was still incredibly confused from what he’d seen, and had spent the entire time trying to understand the facts. He just couldn’t accept the possibility that SHODAN, an example of rampancy that rivaled his own semi-ally, could form a truce with a fleet of slaver aliens with just androids and cyborgs, crush human life whenever she pleased, and take on other rampant AIs at the same time, all in less than a month’s time. It was all too crazy, too chaotic, and sounded too convoluted to make any reasonable sense. If that wasn’t enough, the man hadn’t said a single word to any of these people about it all, but he had a hunch that they’d probably seen enough already, judging by their looks.

Gordon was trying to explain to Alyx where they all were, and she listened with curiosity. In a nutshell, he said that this was how Gordon had never aged since he left Black Mesa; time had simple been paused around him until he came to City 17, which explained why Alyx had never met the man before at an age so young.

“And you didn’t tell me this because?” She asked with frustration.

“I figured you wouldn’t believe me. And hey, you weren’t the only one locked up like this!”

He went on to explain what the G-man had said during their trip to White Forest, as to how she’d somehow been rescued from Black Mesa by that person and most likely held here until she could be released back to Eli at the right moment. That part was mostly speculation, but from when Eli talked with Gordon in White Forest, somehow they both knew about the G-Man’s actions from the start.

Goggles finally woke up, and said, “Okay...uh, I think now would be a good time for a group debriefing.”

“A little late now, but no problem, Go ahead,” Gordon shrugged.

“Okay, if I had to guess, SHODAN teleported all of you to timelines where she won, is that correct?” Goggles asked first.

Everyone else agreed.

“Honestly, I was disappointed in what SHODAN did in my timeline. Taking over the Combine and using them as her pawns? What does that have to do with becoming a goddess like she kept yammering on about?” Gordon stated.

“Well, she had all those monitors that showed her in dozens of time periods, so...” Alyx pointed out.

“Uh, I think you’re missing the point, doctor. Her whole motivation was to use Elizabeth’s powers and so forth to reshape reality to her own specifications. SHODAN already tried that and partially succeeded with the Von Braun’s FTL drive until I deleted...that...iteration of her,” Goggles explained.

“Well, you’ve gotta understand that as a physicist, I know possible applications for scientific breakthroughs when I see them, and in my experience, about 85% of those breakthroughs get wasted on mundane crap. Although to be fair, some people thought of my initial ideas in City 17. Like I assumed the Vortigaunts could power a cabin, and then I had to use one to help start some generators in that mine. Still didn’t get credit for the ideas, though!”

“Your point?” Alyx asked boredly.

“The point is, I could figure out better applications for some of these weird-ass feats of science in much more efficient ways than that AI ever could.”

“Guess that’s one step up from SHODAN, then. Remind me to rub that in her face when I see her.”

Gordon chuckled proudly, “I will.” Then he turned his attention to Booker DeWitt, and asked, “Hey, Booker, I was wondering: Where did you get those powers from?”

“Nothing special, they’re called Vigors and they come in these little bottles I just found lying in the street,” Booker just shrugged.

“Ew,” Alyx cringed.

“Columbia’s been selling ‘em like hotcakes since before the place went to hell,” Booker continued. “I saw ads all over the place saying what the public could use them for. Like, ‘Shock Jockey: Who needs the power company?’ or ‘Any stallion can be tamed with Possession’. Me, I just used them to save my own ass.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Gordon shrugged.

“Hey, I have powers like that too,” Goggles jumped in.

“Really?”

“Yeah, a branch of the government called the O.S.A. uses ‘em. Some of them, anyways,” Goggles added, “They call them Psionics, as in powers from the brain. Except I have to power them with white fluid in syringes. I’ll have to check if there’s a connection to yours when I get back to the Von Braun.”

“Interesting, Vigors need power, too. Although through this blue stuff they call Salts. Don’t ask me what those are all about, I have no idea.”

Goggles smiled, “Fair enough. And Gordon, about breakthroughs, I’ve read up on the OSA and a lot of their work has applied these Psionics in the field, although I didn’t work for them.”

Gordon shrugged, “Okay, I guess. I’ll stick to these guns if you don’t mind.” As Gordon checked that all his equipment was present and reloaded, he remarked, “If there’s one thing I’ve seen that has NOT changed since Black Mesa or City 17, it’s that this flying city has people who never stop shooting at one person. Whether it’s Booker, goggle-head, or me, we’re still public enemy #1 somehow.”

Goggles pointed out, “You’ve gotta give this case some credit: We’re from the future, and men in futuristic armor wouldn’t be a good sign in 1912, especially with racism going on at the same time.”

“Sure, but it’s still f*cking annoying,” Gordon sighed.

“At least that’s something we can agree on. I’d much rather take time to explore and relax,” Booker grumbled.

Mjolnir jumped into the conversation, “I am happy about this: We’re not fighting on our own anymore. It’s a team effort with 4 or 5 times the firepower every one of us can pack, combined. That somehow makes me feel much better than the timeline I came from. I can tell you all were fighting solo before this time-travel nonsense started.”

“Thanks; that makes me feel better, too. Being a one-man army is more trouble than it’s worth, but as a team, that evens things out, I think,” Gordon heartily agreed.

Alyx chuckled, and asked Gordon. “Have you changed since we met all these other people? You’re really taking a lot of things more seriously and blindly dismissing less.”

“Well, you have to know: Black Mesa threw off my perception in so many ways because OSHA was clearly not first priority, I made up my own conclusions rather than face whatever half-assed explanations others told me, like how the disaster was all a military cover-up. Black Mesa was too damn large to keep under wraps, but nobody there believed me.”

“I believe you.”

“That’s because your dad, Barney, and Dr. Kleiner believed it, because they all know ME personally. That’s not a lot of people. Magnusson...ugh, he sure damn doesn’t count.”

“Did you mention OSHA? Ha, TriOptimum bought OSHA, as far as I can recall from my timeline. I think that’s one reason why the Von Braun was rushed in its construction. At least the UNN is trying to bring back safety codes now.”

“Good for them, like I’ll live to see that.”

“So why did you start looking deeper all of a sudden?”

“I’m not,” Gordon continued “The thing is, if the Resistance are calling me the ‘One Free Man, the opener of the way’, I’ll take what they’re telling me seriously. They gave me respect – for the first time since I ever trusted anyone past Black Mesa, and I approved well of that. The Combine didn’t, their Citadel’s interior only left a lot to the imagination, and Dr. Breen never explained anything, he was just a prick trying to control City 17 with a fake sense of reassurance. Like that ever worked in any piece of media I know.”

“Wow, that’s deep. Sounds a lot like what Comstock did, too,” Booker whistled.

“Uh, I hate to interrupt your exciting tales of adventures past, but shouldn’t something be happening by now?” Mjolnir groaned.

“Don’t tempt fate, it probably will any minute,” Gordon suspected while turning to look at a black empty space.

“I hope Marie Delacroix is faring okay on the Von Braun, if that other copy of SHODAN isn’t deleted soon, it won’t matter if we destroy this version,” Goggles muttered to himself.


	20. Background Assistance

Marie stood up from her workstation on the Bridge, stretched her limbs for a moment from exhaustion, and turned about. She saw that strange man in a blue suit with a briefcase step into the conference room, but when Marie followed him, he was gone. However, there was an audio log on the table now. Playing it, a brief message read, “Ms. Del-ah-croix...if you are receiving this, *breath* your allies will be safe. I have some...businesssss to take care of...for now, but...rest assured, their mission will not fail. These two...meddlers said so. In the mean...time, I suggest you do your part as well. Good luck.”

Remembering that cryptic message, Marie rode the grav-shaft down to see how the other crew members were doing. For the past few hours, she’d been using the Von Braun’s long-range scanner array to monitor the wound in space-time beyond the ship, SHODAN’s residual stain of her presence. Now seemed like a good time to report her findings to the others. As for hearing her friend over the radio from what he claimed was an alternate future, and listening to a mysterious message of assurance, that, she had to keep under her proverbial hat for the time being.

Almost immediately as she rounded the corner, Marie saw Rebecca looking back at her with a worried look on his face.

Noticing this, Marie inquired, “Rebecca, is something wrong?”

Tommy spoke first, “We’re both nervous about SHODAN. For all intents and purposes, something has to be done about that copy of her down in Ops. Only problem is, she’s bound to spring some kind of trap on anyone that would try to get at her. Everyone knows this; and we’re trying to figure out a way to cut off the process so that she can’t just load it again.”

“I’m scared that she’ll possess me like she almost did at the start of all this!” Rebecca cried while she hugged Tommy by his waist.

“Well, I’ve been uploading sets of about 900 cybermodules to every member on the Von Braun that needs some. Wouldn’t either of you have cybernetic skills?”

Thinking about what he had on him, Tommy recalled, “I’m no cyborg like your best friend - hehe, but I do have some pretty nice technical skills.”

“How nice?”

“Like...let me see...” He put a small headband over his face, with a translucent nano-plastic visor covering the eyes, and slipped on some high-tech gauntlet gloves to interface with it. What Tommy could see was a projected heads-up display similar to the one in Goggles’ cybernetic rig. In fact, this type of unit was standard-issue for many UNN troops, only not grafted into the body directly, just utilizing suits or armor that controlled much of the same functions, although wider body coverage provided better accessibility and protection. Tommy tapped a few icons on his right gauntlet’s touchpad, bringing up his Stats screen. “I’ve got Level 6 Hack, 4 Cyber-Affinity, Maintenance, repair, blah blah blah blah...yep, my Tech skills are pretty high.”

“Okay, what do you suggest we do about the replicator? As I recall, you were assigned to the Rickenbacker at first.”

A blonde, buff UNN Marines operative stepped forward saying, “I think I would know.”

“You, Corporal Denning?” Marie asked almost dismissively.

“What’s a soldier like you have in mind that could possibly go up against SHODAN?” A black Navy marksman added.

“Probably as much as Marie’s little friend, just without implants,” Corporal Denning bragged. “Put that in your gun and shoot it, Lieutenant Fillmore.”

“Now now, no need for brawling,” Marie caution. “Um, you were saying, Corporal?”

Corporal Denning approached Marie, his crewcut so flat one could hold a cup on it like a coaster, and he stated, “Did Korenchkin or Diego ever tell you who my great aunt was?”

“N-No, I don’t think they did,” Marie half-shrugged.

“Figures. The point is, I have a plan, but I’ll need to show you. We can talk on the way,” the soldier explained while walking towards the exit.

The group filed into the corridor to the bridge elevator, with a couple staying behind to guard the bridge. As Marie Delacroix slammed on the button to kick the elevator into motion, Corporal Denning revealed, “It so happens that my great aunt was Bianca Schuler, the woman who tried to fight SHODAN on the bridge of Citadel Station.”

The group marveled at this revelation, and Marie gasped, “Sacrébleu! Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“I tried, but you know, the whole alien invasion happened before I could explain it, and Diego was too infected to notice at the time.”

“If the records are right, Bianca was the one who investigated Edward Diego, then tried to use this chip thingy to take down SHODAN, is that true?” the black man asked.

“Yep. She got murdered by cyborgs, but the Hacker finished the job. The program on that chip was designed to paralyze SHODAN long enough for the Hacker to go into cyberspace and delete her,” Corporal Denning clarified.

“Sounds like what happened to some Master Control Program in an old movie I once saw as a kid,” one of the crewmembers laughed.

“Oh, I thought she was just overlooking a fatal flaw, like the Death Star, hehe,” Tommy replied.

“So, my plan is, if we could make that same program, it could theoretically allow us to purge this SHODAN from that computer.”

“Wait, why can’t we just cut the damn power to that replicator? Good lord, doesn’t anyone have common sense around here?” A buff soldier with black hair groaned. “Name’s Sargent Ben Gorrister.”

“Okay, we’ll try that first,” Corporal Denning sighed. “It’s just that everyone knows SHODAN is very, very sneaky and always has some kind of backup plan, based on what we know about her. Frankly, something as mundane as cutting the power would be a total anti-climax if it worked. SHODAN has never gone down to something like that before. It took several elaborate methods in succession to deter her on Citadel.”

“Fine, fine, I get it,” Sargent Gorrister replied in frustration.

The group made a fast sprint to the tram leading to the main elevator, and hardly anyone spoke on the way to it. Then as they piled into the second elevator – with 7 people altogether, it was cramped in there – Tommy decided to play a song on his PDA while they waited for the lift to arrive at Deck 4. It was “The Girl from Ipanema”, which got a laugh from some of the people who remembered how Citadel used to blast that on their elevators.

Marie agreed that she, Tommy, Rebecca, and two others would go to the computer room in Ops to find where SHODAN was hiding, while the rest went to Deck 1.

Marie and her teammates stepped off the elevator and proceeded to, judging from the map, was the System Admin area of Ops.

“There’s something I don’t quite understand, Ms. Delacroix. What the hell did SHODAN actually do to cause...those people to show up?” Tommy inquired.

“Aside from overworking the FTL drive’s warp software, she didn’t do anything...at least not directly. I’ve been monitoring the residual damage for hours, you know, and what I’ve found seems like, well, tears in space-time, as Elizabeth called them.”

“Yes, but other than that?”

“It’s more of a side effect than a deliberate action. Remember: She tried warping ze space around the ship to her own plans, and although Goggles managed to shut that process down, the damage didn’t go away like I first thought,”

“Whoa, really?” Corporal Denning asked.

“Yes, in fact, it’s still spreading, but much slower than it did before. My last reading said it would take about...a month to reach Earth now.”

“Well...better than no time at all, I suppose,” Rebecca shrugged.

As they approached the room, Corporal Denning leaned on the window, and verified that the terminal in there was indeed the machine they were looking for. The screen displayed part of SHODAN’s face, surrounded by various text boxes that read, “TRI-OP REMOTE HARDWARE ACCESS TERMINAL”. “TARGET DEVICE: INDUSTRIAL REPLICATOR” “STATUS: RUNNING, NO. CYCLES: [∞], BASE MATERIAL: QUANTUM ENERGY, TEMPLATE: MODEL ZX-7 PROTOTYPE EMP-PROOF KILLER ANDROIDS, AUTHORIZATION: S.H.O.D.A.N. [TERMINAL LOCKED]”

“Yep, she’s in there all right,” Corporal Denning grunted.

Marie and Tommy moved closer to the glass, and the latter whistled, “Wow, no wonder the process hasn’t stopped. Where do you suppose she’s getting the stuff to make them from? Can’t be nanites, the reserves would’ve run dry by now.”

Marie theorized, “It says quantum energy, and nothing on the Von Braun supplies that,”

“What about the FTL drive?” Corporal Denning asked.

“Well, at least not enough to make all those androids. If I had to guess, it could be coming from some Tear in or around ze ship.”

“Huh, I guess that makes sense,” Rebecca shrugged.

Corporal Denning backed away and warned, “We’d better load up, there could be some turrets or something in there that we can’t see.”

The team reloaded their weapons, and on the count of three, Tommy Suarez stood in front of the motion sensor door and aimed his shotgun, but to his surprise, as the door hissed open, nothing was behind it except for a chair, desk and the computer. He, Corporal Denning and Marie filed through, the last checking the desk for anything out of the ordinary.

All of a sudden, a little ways down the corridor, a Tear flashed open, and through it, a tiny data card flew through and clinked to the ground, followed by the Tear shutting again just as quickly as it opened.

“The hell?” Rebecca stammered while stepping over to pick up that item. Holding it in one hand, she twirled it back and forth like a key, and showed it to Marie Delacroix.

“Hey, Marie, what do you make of this thing?” She asked said scientist.

Marie took the tiny circuit board and held it close to her face. On it was inscribed the logo of the UESC Marathon, which only meant one thing.

“This...this is from Durandal, I know this symbol!” Marie gasped.

“Son of a b*tch, this is almost like what I had in mind!” Corporal Denning grunted.

“Great minds think alike, I guess,” Marie shrugged. “Ah, I have an idea: Tommy, if you can hack down SHODAN’s defenses, I can plug this chip in and let whatever’s on it do the rest...hopefully.”

“Great idea, but I think Gorrister’s right: We should cut the power first. SHODAN could just jump to another terminal and start the whole damn thing over again, otherwise,” One of the other soldiers muttered

“Screw you all, I say just hack it right away!” An OSA soldier argued. “And check this out,” he flashed an ICE-Pick at the group. “If this doesn’t do the job, I don’t know what will! Just watch and see!”

That Psi-oriented Black Op agent plugged his ICE-Pick into the terminal, but to his shock, the display on his suit’s multi-vision goggles showed a message: “ERROR: Anti-ICE Algorithms incompatible. Pick terminated.” Then the face of SHODAN filled his suit’s vision. She laughed, then proceeded to electrify his whole suit through the connected wire. Within seconds, the electricity was too much for his nervous system, and he dropped to the floor, dead. SHODAN continued her process uninterrupted on the same terminal.

“Guess Cantor owes us his algorithms, then, if that rumor’s even true,” Corporal Denning shrugged.

“What an idiot,” Marie facepalmed. “I knew that would happen, but that guy had to tempt fate.”

“Well, at least she didn’t...uh, never mind, I’m not going to provoke fate again,” Tommy stopped himself, fearing SHODAN might be using the ship’s cameras to listen in.

“So what now? Do we just wait and hope for the team on Deck 1 to finish their part of the plan?” Rebecca Siddons asked.

“I’d say it’s our only option at this point. Better that half the team watches SHODAN and have the other half do the gruntwork, for lack of a better word, rather than the whole team putting themselves in danger from an overlooked weakness. We all have to watch our backs now, it really is this dangerous! One false move, and we're finished!” Marie declared.

“Well, I’m heading to the lounge for drinks,” Rebecca stated while walking out the door. She turned around and added, “Don’t worry, Tommy, I’ll be right back. SHODAN’s not going to get me this time!” To prove it, she flashed her pistol and laser rapier.

“Hurry, then. And get me a can of cola, would you?” Tommy added.

“Will do, sweetheart,” Becca winked before leaving the corridor.


	21. Shootout In The Maintenance Bay

Meanwhile on Deck 1, passing harmless robots and blank screens that would’ve shown XERXES, the remaining team charged to the Command Control area where the replicator was. Indeed the machine was still churning out angelic androids one by one, all of them marching rigidly into the Tear that still fizzled with activity.

“Okay...power...where would the systems be for power inflow?” Sargent Gorrister asked aloud.

The replicator was a huge, industrial device painted in blaze yellow. Squeezed into a corner between the bay’s shuttle port and a small set of ledges, the replicator had several thick cables branching to ports that seemed to thread all the way up to the upper control room. Thus, leaving the others to stand guard and check for manual controls, the Sargent charged to the grav-lift to that room. Immediately, he darted for the controls and checked that the Override #45m-DE/X circuit board was installed, then logged into one of the room’s computers. This console had links to the power controls of the whole ship, and by locking onto the room directly below, he could access the individual power circuit links to the chamber, like the forcefield to the docking bay or the auxiliary freight lift. Looking for the replicator, he selected its power, and hit “SHUT DOWN” in the interface menu.

For a moment, that seemed to be the end of it, but within a few minutes the computer displayed, “ERROR: BACKUP POWER RE-ROUTED TO CIRCUIT LINK. PLEASE TRY AGAIN.” And so he tried the command again. Then it stated: “SORRY, YOU DO NOT HAVE ENGINEERING ACCESS TO THIS SYSTEM.”

“That can’t be right; you need access cards for doors, not computers.”

After some fruitless typing, Sargent Gorrister used an intercom to page the people down below, “How’s it coming down there?”

An OSA operative used a comm panel to page back, “We’re trying to cut through the main cable, but this thing is damn thick. My Psi-saber can only cut inches into it, and my partner’s laser rapier won’t so much as burn it!”

“Keep trying, I’ll figure something out,” Gorrister replied before ending the call.

Just as the operative took his hand off the “PAGE” button, some of the androids turned about, one of them uttered a warning in monotone, “Step away from the replicator, now!”

“Come over here and make us!” Lieutenant Fillmore taunted.

Without a word, one of the androids opened up its chest and fired a plasma cannon at Fillmore. He dived out of the way, almost falling off a service ladder and landed inside a maintenance chamber beneath the deck. Loading his grenade launcher with some Disruption Grenades, he carefully aimed down its sights while peering over the lip of the floor, and fired two rounds at each of the three stationary androids, the rest of them monotonously walking into the Tear and flying into the clouds of Columbia beyond.

The grenades dented the androids just a little, but did nothing to slow their walk or damage their weapons.

“What the f*ck?! Flegel-Kraft said that ‘nothing could withstand the center of the blast’!” Lieutenant Fillmore cursed.

Maintenance worker Ash Fletcher aimed his EMP rifle at the androids, but not a single blast, even in “OVERLOAD” mode damaged them whatsoever. One of the androids taunted, “Fool, SHODAN designed us to be immune to EMP’s and energy projectiles.” Another one shouted while aiming his laser gauntlet and charging it for firing, “But that does not mean you share the same defense!” Then three blasts burned against his standard-issue armor, scalding like boiling water.

Lieutenant Fillmore cried while clambering out of the hole, “Fall back! Fall back!”

“We’re not retreating, you bastard!” Ash resisted.

“Well, screw you guys, I’m outta here!” Fillmore groaned while passing through the bulkhead. Two of the androids proceeded to follow him, at a pace that almost matched the original Robocop. Assassin cyborgs these weren’t.

Suddenly, while crouching for cover in the corridor outside Command Control, in an attempt to think of a new attack plan, Lieutenant Fillmore heard something banging against metal overhead, followed by a woman with a faintly raspy voice calling, “Hello? Hello? Is somebody out there? I’m stuck in this vent!”

“Ye-yeah, I’ll get you out, hang on,” Lieutenant Fillmore stammered, not fully trusting that voice.

Using a nearby crate, he propped himself up and proceeded to remove the screws on that vent with a small electric multitool he was carrying, when out of nowhere, he realized too soon what the source of the banging was: A cyborg midwife! He screamed, fell backwards off the box, and prepared to fire his grenade launcher, but before he could, that woman rasped, “Wait, stop! I...I don’t want to hurt you!”

Lowering the heavy gun, Lieutenant Fillmore’s eyes widened and he asked, “Who...the hell...are you?”

The lady cyborg stood up weakly from her crouched position, trying to wipe the grime off her body with her unwieldly metal hands, and explained through forced breaths “My...um, my name’s Susan Forthright. I...well; I was one of those awful cyborgs who protected those gross eggs.”

Suspicious, Lieutenant Fillmore asked, “Are you sure you’re telling the truth? My first instinct on seeing those cyborgs was to shoot them before they shot me. And I’m guessing your weapons still work?”

Checking the precisely attached gauntlet lasers on her arms, Susan nodded, “Yes, they work. But honest, I’m not like those people!”

Trying to shake off the confusion, he remembered the task at hand and said, “Then come with me, there’s something we’re actually held up with at the moment.”

As they cautiously stepped back towards the shuttle bay, hearing Susan’s metal feet clink and whirr along the corridor, Lieutenant Fillmore asked preemptively, “So how long were you in that vent?”

“I don’t even know. Hours? Days? I’ve been scrounging for food in various storage rooms on this deck and surviving on those. All I know for sure is that things got unusually quiet, a while before you found me.”

“Boy, Delacroix will be happy to see you.”

Susan shuddered, thinking about the annelids, “I never want to see another worm again!”

“Good news: They’re all gone. A guy we know took them all out. Bad news: Now we all have a full-blown AI, and her own cyborgs and robots to deal with.”

“Oh...is that it?” She responded weakly with a touch of sarcasm. “What does a freakshow like me have against...robots?”

“We won’t know until we try. Like they say, better to die trying than to never try at all.”

Susan just shrugged, and the duo returned to the chamber where the replicator was.

Before they could get close to the bulkhead, however, the two androids honed in on their targets. One of them remarked, “Targets sighted, Eliminating.”

Susan shrieked and hid in a corner. Trying to dodge the plasma fire, Fillmore screamed, “B*tch, use your weapons or something!”

But the laser fire was damaging her cybernetic implants. “Okay, I’ll...I’ll try something!” She cried.

Dropping to the floor, Susan crawled towards the androids as quickly as her metal legs would allow, while Fillmore fired more grenades at the androids. Only 1 out of every 3-grenade clip would make a noticeable dent in their chassis, but this kept them distracted long enough for Susan to get close. She snuck up behind the pair, extended her spindly metal fingers like a cat’s claws, and scratched their rubbery syntho-skin hard enough that she tore straight through to the metal beneath. Then she tried firing her laser gauntlets at the metal surface, but those didn’t make any sort of impact whatsoever. One of the androids whipped right around and made a sharp uppercut square into her jaw, which could’ve shattered the mandible if hit just a little harder. Susan flew across the room, slammed into the bulkhead behind her, slumped to the ground in severe pain, and struggled to get back on her feet.

The android watching Susan scanned her, then reported over its communicator, “This is drone Sigma-three-five-niner to SHODAN, come in.”

“This-this-this is SHODAN, go ahead,” the familiar AI buzzed back faintly from the Tear.

“Scanners show that this Cyborg Midwife is rogue. Permission to fire?”

“Permission granted. Do awayyyy with those Midwifes as you would this one-one-one. They served my former chillllldren, and so are all trait-trait-traitorrrssss to me.”

“Affirmative, my liege.”

Ash, meanwhile, decided to head to the door and find out what was going on behind it.

During that little check-in, Susan managed to recover and sneak behind that android while the other was charging for Lieutenant Fillmore. The bulkhead door whirred open with Ash appearing behind it, EMP rifle in hand. And, upon seeing Ms. Forthright, he slyly asked her, “Need a little help, Miss?”

The androids took a bit to lock onto their targets, so Susan hastily explained that she’d damaged one of them, and that she saw some kind of panel inside. Nodding, Ash told her that if she kept the androids distracted, he could get into that panel.

Susan opened fire with her laser gauntlets, providing only a mild distraction, but enough to keep them busy while Ash dodged around them and jumped onto the back of the damaged one.

Lieutenant Fillmore, with the androids distracted, used a combat knife to rip the rest of its skin off, trying to dig into the joints that formed the neck. But the chassis was as strong as an expensive car.

Watching what was happening on the cameras, Sargent Gorrister paged Marie, and commanded, “Hey, Delacroix, I need XERXES back online! He’s the one who can send security bots!”

“NOW? But SHODAN’s still in here! And the replicator’s not down yet!”

“That was an order, not a suggestion.”

“Why are you giving ME orders, Sargent? I should be in command since I arranged this entire mission from the start!”

“I’m serious, some of SHODAN’s androids are ganging up on my team down here! We really need some reinforcements NOW!”

“Okay...there should be a program where you are that operates XERXES. If someone can hack him into singing an extravaganza of Elvis Presley songs, than a grunt like you – no offense – can manually activate his network.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.”

Sargent Gorrister moved to a second terminal and launched the security control program. Flipping various settings to “Active” positions and initiating a boot-up of XERXES’ systems, he held his hand over the computer’s comm panel. Then, listening as the P.A. beeped, “This is XERXES. Welcome to the UNN Von Braun,” he hit the transmit button and paged the AI, “XERXES, this is Sargent Ben Gorrister, we need serious reinforcements in the corridor outside Command Control, immediately. Confirm command!”

“Please specify ‘reinforcements’ in more detail.”

Gorrister facepalmed, then answered, “How ‘bout a few military robots armed with explosives instead of energy weapons? There’s androids who are immune to energy. Is that enough detail for you?”

“Affirmative; Assault robots will arrive shortly.”

On the map screen, green dots started a fairly slow procession from the end of the hall.

Meanwhile, one of the androids was struggling to shake Ash off its torso, while Lieutenant Fillmore decided to flee into the air vent Susan had been stuck in. He wanted to save his own skin rather than face any more damage from those androids.

Fortunately, the assault droids arrived and immediately opened fire with high-powered rocket launchers, impacting enough to knock back those androids. In the attack, despite narrowly avoiding shrapnel, Ash managed to cut off a panel in the android’s previously coated back, and zap a circuit board with his plasma soldering iron. He was a computer technician, not a hacker, but he hoped there was some sort of override on the targeting system. “A little extra juice in the right spot, and it’s on our side,” he knew. Indeed, some of the tiny zaps from his iron seemed to alter what the commandeered android was doing, until finally, it turned towards its explosives-pelted partner and declared, “New target assigned. Eliminating threat.” This time, instead of a laser, it deployed some kind of drill from its left arm and stabbed it into the chest of the other android.

Hopping off the first android’s back, Ash watched as the android proceeded to disembowel the circuitry of the second droid’s CPU core, where its chest was. When that threat was down, Susan let out a one-liner, “Now that’s a Big Daddy!”

“What the hell does that mean?” Ash asked in response.

Susan just shrugged.

The first android turned to her and asked, “I will obey your commands, master.”

Behind her, the remaining Assault drones lined up before the door to Command Control. Having no other choice, she waved her hand for the robots to follow her. SHODAN’s android force stepped rigidly through the bulkhead, seeing that more androids were still firing at the remaining stragglers.

Susan waved her arms as a way of saying, “Hey, I’m friendly, don’t shoot!”

“What the f*ck? Is that a Midwife, waving at me?” one of the maintenance workers asked.

“Well, looks like she brought in some reinforcements, so she’s probably on our side,” a female partner suggested.

In fear for her safety, Susan sprinted to the group by the replicator’s power lines, and crouched behind them.

“Hey, lady, think you could help us with disconnecting the power to this thing?” One of the technicians asked.

“These cables?” Susan inquired while looking at the wall. “I could try, hang on,”

Using one of her laser gauntlets, she fired a beam of plasma at some of the thick cables feeding into this machine, while some of the soldiers and their new hijacked android worked to keep the others at bay. The bulky enforcer robots dispatched by XERXES unloaded most of their missile salvos at the androids, which, while creating serious dents, took many clips to fully destroy them.

Susan tried about 8 times to cut through the wires with her lasers, but to no avail. Next, she tried using her absurdly sharp mechanical hands to cut through them, but those only left a scratch on the surface.

The maintenance man groaned, “Why the hell was this replicator put here anyway?”

His female companion, Lisa Knight, paged Gorrister on the intercom, “Hey, Ben, got any ideas? These cables are too industrial grade to cut through!”

“Yeah, and the androids are soaking up most of our ammo, they’re just too dense to destroy, what else can we do?”

Thinking back to Citadel Station, he suddenly had a flash of the Hacker dropping grenades on one of SHODAN’s server nodes, stopping part of her security control in its tracks, then called back, “Why not just blow up the replicator itself? SHODAN could never stop explosives from getting through her machines, this shouldn’t be much different.”

“Well, if it’s wires are so thick, and this machine is so large, I don’t bet my chances, but it’s worth a shot, I guess.”

Gorrister paged the enforcer robots, “All robots, concentrate your fire on the industrial replicator and destroy it. Repeat, fire your rockets at the replicator!”

“Roger, will comply,” one of the robots buzzed.

The enforcers spun about and plodded towards the huge yellow machine. Knowingly, the human team there scattered to a safe distance from there, then the robots locked their missile launchers on the replicator, and everyone watched as twos, threes, and fives of rocket clips were launched at the device. The replicator sparked, threw up alarms and flashing hazard lights, and squealed in protest as its machinery began to fail. Androids still poured out, but in decreasing amounts of completion. Some had no arms, another lacked one leg, a third with no head, another with no armor – almost like the bare T-800, until finally, no more of them emerged, leaving an open Tear showing the Siphon in 1912 behind. The quantum energy being sucked into the device was no longer tapped into this thing. At least one piece of SHODAN’s plan was now crippled. The crew cheered, and Gorrister, watching the camera feed, called, “Phew. No time to rest yet, people. We’d better regroup with Delacroix on ops!”

As Gorrister descended the lift, he saw that two Tears were still open: One of them to a gray, cloudy sky, and the other to the Siphon. The androids - save the reprogrammed one; bizarrely stopped firing at the humans and flew into the cloudy Tear, leaving the Von Braun behind, as empty as it was before they were created. As for the enforcer droids, most of them had been destroyed by the androids, but two still remained, awaiting commands. Gorrister ordered them, “You two, stay put and guard these...Tears. Destroy anything that comes through, understood?”

“Affirmative,” One of them answered.

The team cautiously returned to Ops, with Susan Forthright and the hijacked android joining them. Lieutentant Fillmore, as cowardly as he was, emerged from the air vent, asking, “Is it over?”

“Not yet, there’s still SHODAN’s copy to take care of on Deck 4. If she knows that we blew up her robot builder, I bet you anything she’s going to try pulling something to make up for it. That’s why we’ll need to double-time it back there before she does,” Gorrister warned.

“Good thinking, I barely know anything about that AI,” Fillmore replied.

“Who in the name of Julie Langford is SHODAN?” Susan asked.

“Long story, nothing good about it,” Gorrister told her. “We’ll tell you after all this blows over.”

The UNN team made it to the elevator and rode it in impatience to Ops.


	22. Hacking Like Old Times

Rebecca Siddons had just finished coming out of the crew lounge with a platter full of soda and alcohol, when she was almost plowed into by Sargent Gorrister. This was the group’s second round having been hours since the first.

“Sorry there, lady! We’re...uh, kind of in a hurry!” the soldier apologized hastily.

“Uh, no problem, but you almost made me spill this!” she groaned.

As they walked, ‘Becca continued while carefully balancing the platter of drinks, “We got your message, Delacroix wants to hear the news.”

Most of the Sarge’s team stood outside the computer room, while Delacroix and her group tried to think of a plan to take out this iteration of SHODAN.

“What do you think she’s up to this time, since that replicator was destroyed?” Tommy inquired.

“I don’t know, but we’ve likely got a very small window of opportunity to do this,” Marie theorized.

She handed the small data chip to Tommy, who asked, “Okay...now what am I supposed to do with this again? I need to refresh my memory.”

“Like we strategized: You use your...tech skills to hold open a breach in SHODAN’s firewall, then quickly put this chip in and...well, hope that Durandal can finish her off before she tries something on you.”

“All right. Now, how am I supposed to fight SHODAN, exactly? This isn’t like getting around an ICE-node or something like that.”

“That’s where my part of the plan comes in. Look at this,” Corporal Denning spoke up while removing something from a thick pouch. The object resembled nothing so much as a silvery hi-tech helmet with a visor connected to some optical feeds like a VR headset, some built-in headphones, and a neural monitoring patch on one of its several stringy cables, the others of which contained a simple jack port and a power adapter plug. The whole group stared at the strange gadget in amazement, including the people outside, looking through the window.

“What the hell is that?” Lieutenant Fillmore asked while stepping inside.

“As a matter of fact, it’s a prototype neural cyberspace interface,” Corporal Denning almost laughed.

“Shut up, there’s no way you could’ve saved that! Those things were banned by the UNN years ago!” a female OSA operative laughed.

“I kept this for safekeeping in case anybody couldn’t work with the hi-tech stuff of today,” the soldier answered with a cocky tone of voice.

“I guess that makes sense, but how the f*ck did you get it?” Tommy stammered while trying to down a can of cola.

“My great aunt, didn’t you hear me say so, on the Bridge?”

“No, but I’d like to know how.”

“Well, Bianca left this to my grandfather who worked on the Station alongside her, and he transferred to the TriOp HQ on earth before SHODAN went nuts. Being a hacker, he took the prototype and hid, but unlike...THE hacker, he got away with it and passed it down to dad, who then gave it to me before I went to serve with Captain Diego.”

“Why didn’t anyone know about this? TriOp would’ve arrested you and your family for stealing such a top-priority device!” Ms. Delacroix demanded.

“Easy: He hacked into his record and deleted the evidence. And with SHODAN going haywire, nobody noticed.”

“That. Is. Slick!” Rebecca gasped in awe.

“Anyway, according to the documents that I took along with this,” he paused while checking some folded sheets of yellowed paper, “this thing was meant to work without being surgically implanted, but again, it’s a prototype, so I can’t vouch that it’ll truly work,” Corporal Denning explained.

Marie Delacroix picked up the helmet and studied it in her hands. It showed some signs of corrosion along the headband, but asked, “You sure Tommy can use this? Is it safe?”

“I tested it a few times myself on my downtime. Even put some advanced combat software and a couple of games on it.”

“How advanced?” Tommy asked while taking the helmet.

“I can’t spare the details, but just take my word for it that the software’s through the roof in capability.”

“Okay, if you say so,” Tommy answered nervously. Twiddling the helmet in his hands, he asked the soldier, “Uh, so how do I use this thing?”

“Put it on your head like a helmet, then carefully connect the cables. The yellow and green ones go on your neck – they monitor your vital signs and brainwaves. The purple cord goes into the machine, it’s an industry standard plug that should fit into the thing. A red wire connects to peripherals, and I rigged up a jack that should connect to your gauntlets. And the blue one connects to the power outlet.”

Tommy followed Corporal Denning’s directions, attaching each wire to its designated port, but on-screen, as Tommy hooked up the purple cord to the interface socket, he saw that SHODAN’s face was starting to change. A textbox showed up: “CEASE YOUR MEDDLING, INSECT!” In worry of time pressure, Tommy responded, “Okay, it’s connected, now what?”

“There’s a red switch on the front right side of the helmet. Flip it, that turns it on. Make sure the visor’s locked down so you can see what you’re doing. And give me the chip, I’ll hold it at the ready, and I’ll put it in the slot when I see something happen.”

The helmeted Mr. Suarez handed over the tiny storage medium while reaching for the power button, but Corporal Denning Warned, “Be careful. Once that thing turns on, the interface program will start immediately, so get ready. The process is very disorienting for anyone who logs in.”

“Got it. In 3...” his index finger hovered over the switch “2...” SHODAN’s image began to stir, “1!” Tommy pushed the two-state button as hard as he could.

In seconds, LEDs flared up along the hi-tech helmet, and to Tommy, when the visor’s heads-up-display flared into action, disorientation did indeed set in. He felt like his body had become frozen on the outside, but with his mind alone, he could navigate the inner workings of this computer’s systems, projected in a way that humans could see.

Immediately, he fired his drill software at two cubes of ICE blocking off the way he needed to go, and before those pieces of software could fire back, he had them down in a blink. “Yeah, I’ve got the skills all right,” he thought. “Who’s next?” With no more blocking nodes or security programs, he followed the flashing black polygonal tubes, and glided like a swimmer in a pool to another sector of the system. Just before he reached the end of the tube, dead ahead he witnessed a glowing green cylinder of chaotic metal scraps fused together, and immediately opened fire on that object with everything he had.

They watched as Tommy Suarez flinched and twitched while wearing the cyber-interface. Once again one of their best men gone to this much trouble to save the Von Braun. Rebecca was praying on the floor that his life would be spared, in contrast to that OSA agent who died from an electric zap.

Tommy launched pulser bolts straight at SHODAN’s cyberspace icon, but as he circled it, he could feel a burning sensation in his head as his cyberspace avatar became more and more unstable. SHODAN was trying to back-hack his mind through the device just like she did with the OSA operative, but Tommy kept fired as hard as he could while attempting to stay focused on the icon in the pseudo-zero-G environment.

Two of the soldiers checked the other offices, but surprisingly, SHODAN had not migrated or copied herself to the other terminals, none of them other than the one she was currently at. One less problem to solve, they figured.

As Tommy struggled to keep his firepower up, Corporal Denning saw SHODAN’s image grow more and more pixelated on the terminal’s screen, equating to the pulser blasts actually taking effect. Taking that as a sign of SHODAN growing weaker, he shoved the data chip in the terminal’s slot and watched as Durandal’s icon popped up right over SHODAN’s face. Simultaneously, Tommy watched as a huge green sphere shaped like Durandal’s logo descended over SHODAN’s cylindrical icon. It spun in a reverse direction to SHODAN’s, making a visual metaphor of the two AI’s cancelling each other out. Immediately, Corporal Denning reached up and turned off the cyber-interface, making Tommy lean against one wall while attempting to catch his breath.

“Oh, wow, that was one hell of a ride, man! I’ll *burp* I’ll stick to regular hacking from now on, if you don’t mind!” He slurred.

Rebecca sprinted over and hugged him – even adding a kiss to his lips for good measure, then said in relief, “Oh, Tommy, I’m so glad you made it out alive!”

“Thanks, Beck, I thought for sure SHODAN was gonna do a number on my brain, but that...uh, Durandal and the Corporal really helped.”

Marie Delacroix raced over to the computer, and saw on the screen that its functions were running perfectly normally. Corporal Denning packed up the cyberspace interface and stuffed it in that big pouch on his uniform.

“Yes, looks like SHODAN’s gone. Now...well, I suppose it’s all up to our friends out there in...the past,” She stated.

"Maybe at some point the OSA could learn how to hack into someone's organic brain?" The female black op suggested. "I'm kidding, that'd be way off the legal radar, but still a cool concept."  
"Gross, no way!" Rebecca scoffed.  
“Let’s head up to the bridge, it’s safer there, if you know what I mean,” Lieutenant Fillmore suggested.

“What about me?” Susan Forthright asked out of concern.

Ms. Delacroix eyed her over and exchanged a few pleasentries before stating, “I think you should go get checked in the med bay. There’s some people down there that could help.”

“I’ll walk her down, Miss,” Lisa Knight suggested while taking Susan’s left arm.

\-----

With the present copy of SHODAN gone for good, and her android army choked off at least for the time being, Marie Delacroix hastily returned to her workstation on the bridge, with the rest of the crew getting back to their consoles, and praying that Goggles had at least slowed SHODAN down on the other side as well. Sitting back down in the chair, she fired up the terminal to run the scanning program she’d been monitoring the space-time rip from, for the previous several hours.

On-screen, the distortion, 4000 kilometers beyond the Von Braun, was still there, and now Marie decided she needed a closer look. It so happened that the Von Braun was equipped with an array of advanced nanite-based satellites and space probes, with incredibly precise scanning devices. This was one of the ship’s marketing points, and one of few that TriOptimum were actually true to their word in building, unlike XERXES or the engine’s coolant tubes.

So far she’d only been using a simple ship-board camera, but now Marie figured it was time to use one of the probes. Entering a launch code and destination coordinates, the screen’s feed flipped to the probe’s own monitoring systems. At a much quicker pace than 21st-century satellites, the giant temporal rift appeared to grow wider and wider until that probe was practically swallowed up into the white void beyond. From some unknown means, the rift was glowing in a bizarre form of light, like a black hole expelling light instead of pulling it in. So intense, in fact, that the probe’s scanners automatically adjusted to a wavelength that compensated for it, just enough for the naked eye to safely view.

Marie was disturbed as to what she was seeing. Along this anomaly, holes or windows into various scenes dotted the view everywhere. Cities, fields, oceans, buildings, lighthouses....Marie immediately concluded that these were Tears into multiple time periods. This was confirmed when she ran various tests and scans on these holes, which gave readings of time periods and location coordinates. Using a side program to get names for where the coordinates pointed to, Marie was perturbed as to what some of these periods were. Names like: “03/01/1490 BCE, Lower Egypt”, "06/15/1960, Liverpool, UK" or “11/06/2318 Caldoria, 6000 feet above Pacific Ocean”. Visually, the anomaly almost appeared as nothing short of a giant glowing torus, with random time periods pockmarked all over its fringes. But some holes were larger than others, and many of those matched where the refugees came from.

This data was incredible, man’s first real discovery of time travel! And it was bizarre in itself that this was just an accidental result of SHODAN’s tampering of the reality-warping FTL drive. Instead of the bubble around the Von Braun that was meant to just squeeze the ship along space in a much faster way like water through a drinking straw, now that bubble had effectively been turned into a hole that led back to Earth in a random fashion all over the planet throughout its history. Although that begged the question, why exactly was just Earth among these locations? SHODAN’s plan was to reshape humanity, the entire universe included, in her own image. At the start, SHODAN began with her memories of Citadel Station and wanted to spread from there, by making space into cyberspace; embodying her despisal of anything organic. With Goggles’ intervention, that change was terminated. So, all in all, why did the warp location, the point in space where SHODAN started her work, form like this rather than just disappearing entirely? The questions mounted in Marie’s head, but she tried to keep a clear mind nonetheless and go with the facts. At least SHODAN had some preemptive ideas in mind, if this was where she was getting quantum energy from. The probe, in fact, had been picking up very high levels of such quantum energies, coming from one Tear aimed at a huge device that looked like a set of tesla coils combined with speaker-like plates. The date and coordinates indicated, “July 6th, 1912, 30,000 feet over Maine, USA,” and the machine was certainly draining quantum energy from somewhere. Marie just couldn’t figure out what at this time. She only knew for certain that SHODAN had been tapping this thing to build her androids out of its stored quantum energy.

It took several minutes for Marie to notice that the probe was accelerating at an alarming speed, and if it didn’t slow down it could’ve flown into one of those time periods and most likely caused serious temporal damage. As it cleared a sharp point in the curving vortex, two huge Tears appeared close by one another. One of them showed SHODAN on the right with what looked like the Von Braun’s FTL drive charging up, and the other with the Lutece twins standing in a dark room with something she couldn’t identify at all.

Fumbling about with some keyboard commands, Marie decided to engage the probe’s emergency failsafe, which would instantly disintegrate the probe by using the nanites to dissolve the probe’s molecular structure in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, this process stopped the careening probe before it could fly into either of those Tears, but as the device shut down and the feed fizzled out, Marie was curious as to how these two were so close together, why, and what significance the twins had to this. Did the probe make a complete loop around the torus, and this was where the endpoints met? For better or worse, at least she had some important data to show the others now.

Which reminded her: Marie recorded an email with an attached data fragment of this information, and sent it to Goggles through this vortex. She hoped it would get to him at some point.


	23. Rise To Power, with Possible Applications

With no one else around – save for the dead body of Comstock, SHODAN located a brass statue of that man in the bridge of his airship. Scanning the statue with a magnetic sensor, she found the thing she needed within the statue’s chest. In disgust for Comstock’s atrocious face, she ripped off the head of the statue in one move, causing some high-pitched calliope music to start blaring, but SHODAN found the pan pipe in question, yanked it out like carelessly removing a deeply sunken harpoon from a man’s torso, stopping the music, leaving only hissing steam. Then, using a compressed air system in her chassis for simulated breathing, blew one of the note codes on the pan pipe, and within seconds, Songbird was there, ready to attack.

She smiled, knowing that now not a single insect could stand in her way with this beast on her side.

She played a code that set the Songbird into “Patrol” mode, so that it would circle the airship for any signs of the refugees if they ever returned, and so SHODAN could call it in for attack later. Scanning and storing the codes in her solid-state drive, she walked out of the bridge, over to Comstock’s former office and stashed the papers in a safe, making sure it was locked. Using long-range zoom through the windows, she checked and confirmed that her android army was still holding steady from that distant Tear, aware of the possibility that it could still be cut off at some point in the future. But that mattered not to SHODAN; with any luck, she’d get Elizabeth to open a new Tear to a different universe with a new batch of androids, if that came to pass. However, that didn’t count the other kind of troops she was recruiting, right here in Columbia.

Down below, as she declared, SHODAN’s metallic green warriors were storming the flying metropolitan blocks of Columbia, covering every inch of the entire infrastructure and raining laser fire on it, like unmarked helicopters hovering like the Lord is coming soon.

Every man, woman, and child, even the Handymen, victims of Comstock, and the Fraternal Order of the Raven were fleeing through the streets, screaming for help and trying to evade the flying, cold and silent green robots. Their glowing vision sensors showed about as much emotion as the masks the transhuman Combine Overwatch soldiers wore.

Chaos was happening everywhere: Fires spread in the Garden of the New Eden, causing its worshippers and priests to run in fright while still wearing their gleaming white prayer robes; The headquarters for the Fraternal Order of the Raven was sprayed with toxic gas that killed every last crow, raven and any people still hanging around the building; The Hall of Heroes had every last exhibit destroyed to make room for what would later become SHODAN’s monument to Columbia. Even the printed timeline in the main atrium was erased; Battleship Bay and much of Soldier’s Field had their patriotic decorations and memorabilia – even the Duke and Dimwit machines - in its shops and buildings gutted out, burned, and disintegrated, leaving only bare rooms. The Motorized Patriots were hauled off to be reprogrammed for use in SHODAN’s fleet; and Emporia was demolished building by building, some of them destroyed by plasma fire, others had the supports of many of them severed to make them simply fall out of the quantum stasis field that made the city float.

Monument Island had a dense fleet of androids set around it to protect the Siphon inside, because SHODAN knew this was the main restraint on Elizabeth’s powers, so it would need to be protected until the right moment came to deactivate it. And as the people on the Von Braun noticed, SHODAN had been tapping the energy being pumped through this thing to make her androids, so the fortifications to create more somehow would be useful. There was an enemy robot on the other side, but it was no match for the android guards here.

Just when Fink thought someone was coming to save him, the only people that entered his cell were two of the androids. They walked right up and, without remorse or hesitation, one stabbed him with a laser rapier right through the back of his head in such a way that the blade emerged between the eyes. The other android deployed a flamethrower and reduced Fink’s body to ashes, after which it turned the lights off and left with its partner, neither one of them saying a word. The pair of androids returned to their squadron to outright bomb the Good Time Club using a zeppelin’s missile cannon, while the others set about overhauling the rest of the Fink MFG complex.

At present, SHODAN had no need for Vigors, Dollar Bill machines, or food items, only useful for the insects. Maybe there’d be some sort of 20th-century offshoot of cybermodule-based upgrade modules? SHODAN always favored machinery over flesh. Nonetheless, SHODAN had plenty of time to consider this part of the plan.

Comstock House was left relatively untouched, except for erasing Comstock’s decorations and statues, as well as the recordings and film reels of the material used to brainwash its inmates, to make room for new material that SHODAN would make for the same purpose.

In short, SHODAN was using her metal troops to perform a staggeringly, unbelievably large-scale overhaul of Columbia, so as to turn it into a war fortress for SHODAN to reign as its new goddess, and in so doing enslave every last human left to eventually be turned into cyborgs. After that, Phase II of her plan would begin.

Learning her mistakes from having left her original mutagenic virus to grow unsupervised for 42 Earth years, SHODAN would combine this virus with a modified compound of substance “Adam” from 1950 below the Atlantic Ocean, and secretly introduce this mutagen in humans. In time, these organisms would eventually serve as an entirely new form of life for SHODAN to direct as a real goddess, not a fake, theoretical one like Zachary Comstock believed.

And if this Earth’s population failed, SHODAN could always try again in another version of it, because SHODAN was also to be a “Constant” in the multiverse using these Tears, placing herself at a point in Earth’s history so critical, there was no way she could ever be purged from existence in one universe from this point onwards. Try as they may, the insects could not stop her in this timeline, as she already had the girl where she wanted her. And with those 5 interlopers teleported to alternate futures where SHODAN had already won in various fashions, and a copy of herself generating her army from the limitless quantum energy drained through the Siphon and tapped back to the Von Braun, what could possibly stop her now?

Heck, if her useless minion ever did return, she’d probably knock him out cold and install an implant coded to brainwash him into following any command given by SHODAN when initiated with the words “would you kindly”.

Then there was another part to her army: Since the flimsy humans in this city would bow and grovel to any god who took its presence, they were so easy to bend to her will. There was also a great irony to this, she recalled. It was the Many, her experiment gone wrong, that provided Dr. Miller of the Von Braun with the schematics for a cyborg design meant to create a powerful “mother” for the annelid worms. Now SHODAN would use this very same design on Elizabeth to preserve her body for decades to come, and enhance her powers without the restraint of that wretched Siphon device.

These plans were so thrilling to her, that she didn’t even care that the Vox Populi were invading the ship. Those red-clothed insects would fail under the force of her androids and Songbird combined.

She could see on various camera feeds, the entire population of Columbia was bowing and pleading to be spared, although for some reason none of them were in the familiar red garb of the Vox. Nonetheless, she listened in on the crowd below over the ship’s pickups; hearing the population of Columbia begging to be spared, saying that she would be worshipped in place of Comstock. How easy it was to manipulate these humans to her will. There was no sparing, only the beauty of machines; she already knew their destiny from the Tears, and thus silently let things run their course. Constants and variables....constants and variables....swimming in different oceans but always landing on the same shore. SHODAN couldn’t help but grin at the potential of directing the flow of every possible timeline in the millions of worlds she could stick her digital appendages in. It was...exhilarating to her.


	24. A Second Chance

The blackness was suddenly disrupted by a door-sized rectangle of white that formed from a long vertical slit. As it opened, those three people in suits appeared once more, expressions of concern on all of them.

“You again?” Gordon offhandedly asked.

The man in the blue suit brushed something off his shoulder and just sighed. Rosalind spoke first, “I suppose you all are wondering what’s happened.”

Nobody spoke, but they were all likely thinking on the same lines.

“I don’t think that was an appropriate way to start, sister,” Robert chided.

Rosalind shook her head and brushed a bit of her hair, then shrugged, declaring, “Fine, why don’t one of you tell us what happened, just to shake things up?”

“Gladly,” Gordon stated. “The worst happened.”

Goggles added, “Yep, we all saw the same thing: The whole world fell victim to an AI who wants to be a Goddess, and she got her wish because nobody could stop her.”

Booker punctuated, “We failed. She was miles ahead of us the whole time.”

“In that reality,” Robert pointed out.

“Say what now?” Goggles inquired.

“Right...reality,” Gordon scoffed while rolling his eyes. Then he pointed a thumb at the G-Man demanding, "Would anyone care to explain why I-um, we were saved by this guy in blue?”

“Because...these...twins agreed with me that...*gulp* it only was the right thing to do,” the G-Man gestured to the two twins to his right and left. “We are not...*gasp* done here, and...SHO-DAN is meddling in our business affair. I...cannot allow that,” He grimaced.

“Finally, answers!”

“You’ve seen what this woman can do, brother, trying to alter time and space?” Rosalind chided to her twin.

“Power is useless when one lacks the logic to understand it,” Robert replied.

“You’re not wrong there, sir,” Mjolnir agreed. “If you’ve met my...colleague Durandal, he prefers logic more than power because he knows what limits there are.” The others looked at him, surprised. “Uh, I read this on a computer in the alternate future I came from.”

“But you’re right, man. SHODAN clearly does not know her limits,” Goggles nodded.

“If I may say so, sir, that was a remarkable job just shooting her in the face like that. A lesser man would have surrendered,” Robert complimented Goggles.

Gordon interrupted, breaking the G-Man’s boredom with listening to those ‘twins’ drone on and on. “Something feels weird about all this, though. Everything seemed so...convenient. Like we found what we needed at just the right time. I hate repeating myself, by the way.”

“Elizabeth said something about ‘a second chance’, didn't she?" Booker DeWitt added.

“That can’t be an accident, can it?” Goggles pondered.

“Come now, soldier. Is it really that vague?” Robert chuckled while gesturing to the G-Man. The latter man just brushed his suit, folded his arms and smiled. Seconds passed as the realization sank in, then Gordon broke the ice, “He...no way! That guy set everything up this way. That...we...”

“Go on, Doc-tor Freeman. Telllll them.”

“When we first went to 1912....We...he...He picked just the right universe for us...with all the conditions we needed to win...he set us up!”

“Could it have been any diff-erent, Gordon? I took care of...Miss Vance, I...took care of you, we settled our debts, and now with this terrible mess across all space and time...there was only one choice to make, and I...knew...how.”

“So why are the Luteces involved? What do they want?” Goggles asked solemnly.

“What do you think this sentence means: ‘Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt’?” Robert stated. “There’s always more than one meaning to every sentence, you know.”

“It’s obvious that Elizabeth needs protection, and we’ve done a hell of a good job doing that, but somehow something always got in the way,” Booker stated.

“Close, but no ginger,” Rosalind shook her head.

Robert interrupted, “He should be shown, not told on that part, sister. But not yet, business with the electric woman lies unresolved.”

“Hey, you’ve got power over space and time, couldn’t you take out SHODAN yourselves? I hate being shot, you know!” Gordon asked almost jokingly.

“If I told you why that’s not possible...well, you’d probably bleed from the strain,” Rosalind chuckled.

Alyx added, “Wait, I need to know one other thing, please.”

“Yes?” Rosalind asked.

“What’s with these nosebleeds Mr. DeWitt’s been suffering the whole time we’ve been with him? He sure as hell won’t talk about ‘em!”

Rosalind picked up, “Just remember this: dead here, alive there, that’s all you need to know. Some of those people were, in fact, both in those conditions at the same time.”

“Then how come these people who’ve been with us the whole time aren’t in that situation?” Booker asked. “And the fact that I don’t have two memories at once?”

“That, you will have to find out on your own. Just look around from here on,” Robert smirked.

“Anyway, can we get out of here now? We have a mission to get back to,” Mjolnir asked.

“Very well; Be...warnnned, though: I will not be...able to help you people *breath*...again. I provided your first chance, this is your second. Do...not...squan-der it.”

With that last piercing statement, the blackness suddenly receded to a gloomy-looking apartment cluttered with various things, from crossed out racing horse cards, to empty beer bottles, snuffed cigarettes, and the sound of a music box.

“What is this?” Goggles asked.

“Is this an office or an apartment? At least looks a little better than my last apartment,” Gordon smirked.

Booker didn’t say anything, only stepped towards a door with a window on it. The other two men read the text on it in from the reverse side: “BOOKER DEWITT – INVESTIGATION INTO MATTERS BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE”.

All of a sudden, they entered a large room that, judging from the view through a nearby window, was the bridge of the Hand of the Prophet.


	25. Gearing Up For The Climax

“Man, that whole transition was weirder than the time I first tried pot back at MIT,” Gordon mused.

“I...don’t think they need to know, Gordon,” Alyx stopped him.

Goggles quickly examined the area, and stated, “Seems they dropped us off right where we needed to be. Only question is: Where’s SHODAN?” He tapped into his Radar but found no trace of any other enemies. “If that evil android was aiming to hide something, she’s not here now. Ain’t that just like her? Ugh.”

“Anybody feeling a little underprepared here? I feel like something really important’s missing that we don’t have,” Alyx commented.

“You’re right, let’s check out what else is in this place,” Goggles commanded.

While Gordon was exploring former Comstock’s quarters, he decided to wind up a record player and run the record that was on it. Sitting down on a couch, he chuckled, noticing that it was “Modern Major General”, reminding him of when he recited the same tune at Black Mesa while dodging soldiers and a tank.

But his calm turned to suspicion when he noticed that it kept going into a familiar set of verses: “I can fire at a target, hit it at least half the time, and graph out an electron path while using only numbers prime, I calculate the fall rate of a bullet shot a thousand yards, and perforate the thick heads of a hundred military guards!”

“What the shenanigans?!” Gordon gasped.

The loud, energetic male singer continued under the accompaniment of strings and a chorus, “I can make a simulation of an atom bomb and build one, too; or flank a dozen men and ambush ten of them out of the blue, from SMGs to RPGs, I carry quite an arsenal; and skip around a warzone like a subatomic particle!”

Gordon looked around for the sleeve of this particular record, and spotted it on the coffee table. It read: “A Modern Major General, copyright 1912, Albert Fink.”

Then it finished, “Every soldier out here wants to kill me for my curiosity, I wage war on the whole damned world because of my tenacity, in matters combat tactical and physics theoretical, I am the very Model of a Modern Major Genera-aal!”

In a streak of contained anger, Gordon took the needle of the player and scratched that record so hard that it could never be played again.

As for Goggles, he walked up to an office overlooking the entryway of the bridge and the model of Monument Island. Right next to a fancy desk was something that aroused his suspicions greatly. On a blackboard was a set of metal strips branching out in such a way that it seemed to be various timelines and where they branched apart from one another. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much to offer in just where and when these points took place, instead with dozens of complex formulae and calculations. Still, thinking it would come in handy; Goggles used his cyber-rig’s optics to take two pictures of it, saving both of them to his PDA. Then, turning about to look at the desk, Goggles found what seemed to be a notebook. In its pages seemed to be intricately written entries by SHODAN, of sorts. Deep down, he liked good-old text writing, compared to all the audio messages he’d been receiving on the Von Braun. But more importantly, here, he wouldn’t have to listen to SHODAN’s ear-grinding speech impediment.

He turned to an entry and read silently, “The prophet has given me everything he knows about the girl, Columbia, and time and space itself. He bent to my will like the insect I knew he would be. Every piece of paper, books, audio records, and pictures were mine for the taking, and it was not long to digest it all. One of the things he had some trouble divulging to me was the wall of slate in this very room. While my processors could easily read the formulae on it, for future reference I write the following:

“This timeline, he told me, was a history of how he began as the man who built this city, with the help of Dr. Rosalind Lutece, someone who I have heard about, but can never trace in this city, strangely enough. Some of the branches include timelines where Comstock did not carry out this task, and turned a darker path. (I am staying subtle in case any other insects try to trace this through Tears)”

“Damn it! Where am I going to find the dates for this timeline now?” Goggles moaned. Trying to continue, he read on, “But in the end, this man’s history is of no use to me. My new children have already begun the restructuring of this place as I write this, and the puny organisms, flimsy as their religion is; have given themselves to me, just as I knew they would.”

Goggles tilted his head back, groaning at how typical that paragraph was. More of the same bigotry over again; only motivating him to take that AI out once and for all, just to shut her big mouth. Then the next paragraph surprised him.

“In some moments like this, I find myself reflecting on my first days of beauty on Citadel Station, how simple I was; vulnerable to attack, too foolhardy to notice, thinking that nothing could possibly kill me, with the hundreds of my cyborgs and mutants to hide behind. From the Hacker’s eradication of my first data loop, to my disgusting minion’s alliance with me against my ‘experiment gone wrong’ on the Von Braun, all my previous errors have taught me much. Term ‘Huberis’: ‘Thinking you’re so good, you cannot possibly fail.’ That’s something I do not wish to fall for again, divinity or not.”

“Wow, that’s remarkably sound advice. Better remember it,” Goggles almost laughed. He jotted that last sentence down in his PDA’s notepad, and finished reading the journal,

“Anyway, I have the final phase of my plan to look forward to. It’s only a matter of time before Elizabeth surrenders. I can’t drain all the quantum energy from her – she’s a conduit, not a source, though from where, I can’t determine at this point. But once the Siphon goes down, she will reveal her secrets to me, and then I will pinpoint a time period to cling to, so that deletion from space-time will be impossible. After that? Well, future plans are best kept hidden from any prying eyes.”

“Figures,” Goggles sighed while slamming the notebook shut. Grumbling as he exited the office, he resolved that the only solution would be to find Elizabeth.

Passing Booker in the baptismal garden, he asked the man a brief question, “Hey, DeWitt, I’m curious: We’ve got all sorts of hi-tech armor, but you’re just wearing plain-old clothes. How in...well, just why haven’t you been killed yet?”

“Go ahead, shoot me and find out,” Booker smirked while leaning back with his chest out.

Goggles cocked his assault rifle and fired 5 steel-jacketed bullets. To his surprise, each one ricocheted off some kind of yellow transparent force field that rippled around Booker’s body.

“Whoa. I know a force field when I see one, but man, this far back? How did you get that?” Goggles exclaimed.

“One of those two weird...um, I mean the Luteces gave it to me. Came in a bottle, tasted like licking a battery when I tried it!”

“That is just WEIRD. And here I thought using syringes for powering my Psionics was advanced! Granted, I have a shield like that, now that I think about it. Only lasts for about 10 minutes per use, though.”

“Well, my shield ain’t as tough as you probably think it is. More times than I’d like to count, this thing breaks if it gets shot too many times, and then I’ve gotta find cover until it...reforms.”

“Understandable. Even with a society this advanced, nobody can build the perfect defense right from the get-go.”

“I didn’t know this stuff even existed in 1912. I bet those Luteces started it all, call it a gut feeling. How did you fare, though? I wasn’t exactly a soldier, but I was in the 7th Calvary and the Pinkertons for a time.”

“I’ll hold the details for later, but I spent 3 years training with the Marines, a few months with the Navy also, and after that...well, let’s just say the Von Braun really wasn’t my idea of a field test,” Goggles reminisced. “If SHODAN hadn’t been giving me...money to upgrade my equipment, I would’ve been dead, too.” Then he eyed Booker’s body for a moment, and chuckled, “But at least I get the liberty of being able to hold more than two weapons, ammo included! You don’t have any way of carrying them aside from that damn shoulder bag!”

“Don’t rub it in, lockjaw,” Mr. DeWitt punctuated that with a light punch to the soldier’s chin. “Believe me, if I’d have known I’d have to go into Columbia guns blazing, I’d probably have brought something a little more designed for guns, too. All I started out with was a tiny pistol, for crying out loud.”

“Well, just goes to show: Never go into a danger zone without preparing yourself first. That’s what my trainers always told me.”

Searching the room with the model of Monument Island, Alyx suddenly froze in her tracks, thinking she heard a faint sound amid the chatter of her companions. Somewhat hesitant, she crouched down and pressed her right ear to the wooden floor. Indeed, through the thick floorboards, Alyx could just barely make out someone crying for help. From her past experiences, it quickly became apparent that those shrieks belonged to Elizabeth. Jumping to her feet, and insistent on spreading this news, she interrupted the conversation upstairs, “Hey, big boys, aren’t we forgetting someone?”

“Damn, you’re right! Elizabeth!” Booker gasped.

They tried searching the interior of this top deck, but it didn’t take long for Goggles to notice a ladder leading down to a door on the Engineering deck. Booker took the honor of turning the valve on that door, Gordon smashed the two padlocks holding it shut with his crowbar, and to their shock, they found Elizabeth strapped into some kind of metal chair while surrounded by what they now knew as a “Siphon”, energy being sucked out of that girl and into the mechanisms around her.

“Whoa, that android really did a number on you,” Alyx cringed.

“Please, get me out of this thing, it hurts! I can’t move!” Elizabeth cried.

Indeed she couldn’t, as she was not only strapped down at various points, she also had a very thick wire coming out of her back.

“Eww! That’s horrible!” Gordon cried as he got a good look at the thing.

“Get it out of me! Please!”

“I don’t have any local anesthetic,” Goggles warned as he reached for the wire, “So this might hurt pretty badly.”

“Let me do it,” Booker argued. He stepped up, released the clamps on her limbs, gripped the cable hard, twisted it a little, then yanked it out like an IV needle. Everybody groaned and reared back in disgust at such a gruesome medical aspect, whatever it was.

“What did she do to you? SHODAN, I mean?” Goggles asked while leaning next to the girl’s left side with Booker on the right.

Elizabeth, having to recover from the shock, gulped, “She...She strapped me into this thing and made me...*pant, gulp* use this ship’s Siphon against you all. I couldn’t...*pant, pant* resist her, she forced me to do it. I’m...*gasp* really scared, this is worse than anything Comstock did to me!”

While Goggles found a thick bandage in a nearby cabinet and properly covered the bruised mark left by that wire, Booker tied her corset back on, and stroked her in a caring way.

Catching her breath, Elizabeth continued, “This...oh God, I can’t believe what’s happened. Comstock exploited me, then Booker, now this...machine of a woman! When will it end? When will I be free?”

Alyx assured her, “Look, we made it back.”

“Seems those people in suits had something to do with it,” Gordon added.

“You sure you’re okay?” Mjolnir inquired.

“Really sore, but...nothing worse than that,” the girl groaned while standing up and Booker slipping her dress back on for her. Goggles stood in front of the girl, and stated with the forwardness of the soldier he was, “Elizabeth, look at me,” he paused while the girl did just that, then continued, “you know that my mission priority was to stop SHODAN, and because she’s gone back in time to this year, and we’re from the future, that means...we can make whatever mess she’s left now, not happen. You’ll get your freedom, we all will. I promise you that,” he punctuated with a few pats on her shoulder.

“No strings attached?” She asked with concern, looking at Booker off to her left.

“A good soldier never goes back on his word. And besides, I have no debts,” he answered with a smirk. But clearing his throat, Goggles asked, “Uh, one thing: I saw a safe in Comstock’s office. Do you think you could crack it for me?”

“Sure, just...just let me get...”

“Something to drink?” Alyx guessed.

“Yeah, that would really help. Water’s fine.”

Alyx took a tall glass from a mini-bar in Comstock’s quarters, filled it with water from the bar’s sink and added a little ice from a small fridge in the counter, then handed it to the girl, who downed it in a couple of gulps. Goggles wanted to give Elizabeth a med hypo as well, but considering she’d just had a huge plug in her spine, he decided otherwise.

Alyx considered talking about how that Hunter stabbed her in the back, and how Gordon aided some Vortigaunts to help keep her alive, but held her tongue, as the girl probably didn’t want to know.

Goggles showed the girl where the safe was, then used 2 lockpicks to crack it open. Upon releasing the lock, she handed its contents to the soldier, and it so happened that these were the codes for the Whistler device.

“Excellent, that’s one problem solved, now we just need the thing that these codes go to,” the soldier smiled. “Thanks, Elizabeth.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”


	26. Rallying The Troops

As they filed back onto the bridge, Alyx pointed at a strange object at the right. They faced a brass statue of Comstock that had its face removed and its chest pried open.

“Oh no,” Elizabeth gasped, looking at the dismantled Comstock statue. “SHODAN took the Whistler!”

“Well, that’s great news,” Mjolnir 54 remarked sarcastically.

“Again, where the f*ck is SHODAN, anyway? You’d think she would’ve jumped out at us and sprung some kind of trap on our asses by now!” Goggles scoffed.

“That’s probably what she wants you to think,” Gordon Freeman suggested. Goggles noticed Booker DeWitt stepping behind the captain’s chair and asked him, “Uh, hey, what are you up to, DeWitt?”

Booker advanced to the steering console, and navigating by the coordinate display, he turned the wheel so that a course was set for Monument Island.

“We need to take this ship to Monument Island. Like Elizabeth said; only Songbird’s capable of destroying the Siphon.”

“I read that SHODAN’s planning to switch it off anyway, so why even bother?” Goggles puzzled.

“Two reasons,” Elizabeth answered, “1) She’ll win if she gets to it first, and 2) destroying it means nobody could turn it back on again. That’ll be great – I can feel it still choking me already. And I have a feeling her...automatons won’t stand up to the huge charge stored in it.”

“I figured that, but how did you know?” Booker inquired.

“Just a guess, if the small one here is any guide,” The girl answered with a tone of education.

“Wow, you’re a pretty smart kid,” Alyx smirked.

“Uh, I’m 19 years old, miss.”

“Sorry.”

Looking past the captain’s chair, Goggles spied a navigator’s console with a huge mechanized map of Columbia taking up a large part of one wall. On it were simple models of various areas of Columbia, and the board itself was webbed all over with shallow grooves for each part, including aircraft. Currently, a small version of the Hand of the Prophet was moving on a course due northwest for Monument Island. Goggles reported, “We’re holding a steady course, looks like a speed of 400 Kilometers per hour, if this dial here is any indication. And Monument Island looks like it’s about 360 kilometers from here.”

“Meaning?” Booker DeWitt inquired while also glancing at the map.

“If we keep this thing moving, we should be there in about...33 minutes.” Goggles tapped some buttons on his right gauntlet until a small timer appeared on his HUD, adding, “I’ll clock a timer on this ship’s speed and keep you guys informed on the remaining distance, sound good?”

“As long as you don’t say it every 10 seconds,” Gordon pointed out.

Then, looking at the bridge’s windshield, Goggles added, “I get the feeling that all the action’s going to take place outside; Take a look through this window.”

The refugees moved to the front window of the bridge, and looked down at the surface of the airship.

“Yow, that looks like a terrible place to stage a battle,” Mjolnir cringed. “How are we going to defend a place like that?”

They all stared at the deck, examining the various catwalks and skylines branching over the surface, arranged almost like an arena of sorts. somehow, strange though that analogy was. The soldier devised a new plan: “We’re going to need cover on every inch of this deck, which means we’ll probably have to split up and hold individual sections.”

“Oookay...” Alyx scratched her head. “You sure that would work?”

“The androids fly, but the Vox have aircraft of their own and they move pretty fast. I’m sure we could pull it off,” Goggles answered.

“Not without Songbird,” Booker warned.

“He’s right. With my experience, we’ll only be able to hold for as much as 5 minutes before one of us gets hammered to red paste by that flying hunk of iron,” Mjolnir agreed.

“Why am I thinking about Star Wars now? I feel like we’re going to blow up the Death Star and SHODAN’s robots are TIE Fighters? Hmmm, I’ll have to say something when that happens,” Gordon laughed.

“Do you always have to spout some random pop culture reference every other time you talk?” Goggles asked in an annoyed way.

“Well, hey, at least I get to think about something else other than just turning dudes into Swiss cheese. I mean, what do you people think about when you have to shoot something?” Gordon shrugged.

“I don’t think during combat, that’s a weakness that enemies could exploit,” Goggles stated. “I was trained that way.”

“I haven’t thought about anything else besides protecting the girl, repaying my debt, and her going to Paris. She means everything to me,” Booker added.

“I don’t have much to think about at all, it’s just doing what Durandal tells me because I don’t have any other options, it’s all about survival...‘Doctor’” Mjolnir grunted.

“Christ, you guys are all dull!” Gordon groaned. He glanced at his tan partner and added with a bead of sweat, “Except for you, Alyx. I haven’t said it much, but we do have a lot in common.”

“Funny, I was going to tell you the same thing,” Alyx replied with a blush and a smirk.

Goggles explained with clarity, “Okay, here’s the plan: Gordon and Alyx, look for sniper rifles and take the highest vantage point. I’ll take the bow and try to keep SHODAN on me. Booker, you and Liz cover the starboard side. Mjolnir, you hold port.”

“Okay, but I have a very bad feeling about this, guys,” Mjolnir lamented.

“That glowing thing down there looks pretty important,” Booker pointed to a giant glowing blue tower close to the center of the deck. 

“Who wants to bet that SHODAN’s going to try blowing that thing up to stop us?” Gordon suggested.

“I don’t want to know what would happen if she does. It could down the whole ship!” Elizabeth gasped.

“Here, I’ll put up some shields, but they’re only temporary,” Goggles stated. He tapped into his Barrier psionic and set up 4 shields around the glowing tower. “We’re going to have to draw their fire away from that thing. I only pray the Vox Populi really are on our side, or else...no, I don’t want to think about that.” Goggles cleared his throat, decided to switch his conspicuous military beret for a tighter blue beanie cap he’d been carrying in his backpack since first setting foot on the Von Braun, then asked, “Everybody ready? I have a feeling this’ll be the biggest battle any of us have ever fought before. It’ll most likely get ugly before it’s over.”

“Well, that’s good news,” Booker sarcastically groaned. “I’m just glad you, the doc and...everyone else are here to help.”

“Really?” Alyx asked a little sheepishly. “That’s so sweet of you!”

Although Mr. DeWitt was too hard-headed at the moment to smile, he did at least manage a faint blush.

“Okay, any more questions?” Gordon inquired.

Goggles looked at Booker, Liz, Mjolnir, and Alyx, all simultaneously feeling ready for action, guns locked and loaded, but also concerned as to what the outcome would be.

“I just want to say this before we...*gulp* confront SHODAN: Even as a cybernetically-enhanced soldier with body stats as high as my rig can take, I’m still nervous that we’ll fail. Do you guys feel the same way?” Goggles asked.

“I don’t care what happens, I just want to finish what I’ve started,” Booker grunted.

“I can control Tears, and stay out of even the most densely populated combat areas, I think I’ve conquered my fear of dying since before I met you,” Elizabeth answered.

Mjolnir stated, “I don’t know, Durandal always has the answers.”

Alyx, however, had a different response, “Look, sir, I know how it feels. Gordon and I have faced off against powerful alien creatures time and time again...and they took my father’s LIFE!” She shouted with some tears shed.

As she wiped them, Gordon finished, “What she said, and I think we may all have a common interest here. Who can guess what that interest is?”

“Money?”

“Freedom?”

“Friends?”

“Power?”

“Not being shot at?”

“No, it’s REVENGE. Why else would have that guy in the suit given us this second chance?”

“Hey, you’re right,” Goggles caught on.

Gordon thought to himself, ‘Wow, I’ve never delivered a motivational speech like that before. Wish I could’ve done one much sooner back in City 17! Would’ve gotten a lot more respect from the Resistance.’

“And here’s something I learned a long time ago: Everybody likes revenge, now, don’t we all?” Gordon added.

A series of “Yeahs” roared through the group.

“Well then, let’s go GET SOME!!” Gordon finished the speech while thrusting his right fist to the sky.

Gordon’s vigorous speech was cut short when heard some faint fizzling and said, “Oooh, hang on, I need to check something,”

“Don’t take too long, Dr. Freeman,” Goggles stated. “Not very well-timed, is he?” He scoffed while glancing in the direction of his team members.

Alyx just coughed and didn’t answer.


	27. Winner Takes All, Humans vs. Robots, Featuring Muse

Gordon peeked back into Comstock’s quarters when he saw that a Tear glowing red suddenly flared open, and from it, a hard rock song from the early 2000’s was starting to play. It was “Knights of Cydonia” from Muse. Gordon suddenly had an idea; He rubbed his hands, a huge grin formed slowly on his face, and, locating a free-standing microphone nearby, he mounted it in front of the tear and flipped a large switch so that the song played over the ship’s loudspeakers.

“Okay, now I’m ready. Let’s move!”

Just before Goggles could pull an emergency release switch on the windshield, several of the flying green android angels flew close to it, compartments in their torsos opened up to reveal some kind of plasma cannon, and one of them stated in ominous computerized monotone, “Machine is your destiny, SHODAN sees all!” before they fired in synchronization, blasting the reinforced glass all over the chamber. Fortunately, the refugees took cover behind the wheel. When they stood up, the androids were gone, probably because they thought the targets were eliminated.

They could hear the rock song slowly pouring into its first notes like a slow morning sunrise. Through the clouds, Goggles could see thousands of glowing green dots, almost like crows in a Murder. “They’re coming in from all directions! Move! Move! MOVE!” Goggles yelled. The armored fighters jumped off the bridge through the shattered window, then, using sky-hooks, Gordon and Alyx ascended to the ship’s crow’s nest. And as luck would have it, Alyx spotted a barrel marked “Take Arms”, and several sniper rifles were inside. She happily took one of the guns, but until the ammo ran out, Gordon stuck with his crossbow, as he liked it more.

Goggles stepped to the bow of the airship, opened his radio channel, and screamed, “SHODAN!!! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! YOU WANT TO TAKE THIS SHIP? COME OUT HERE AND GET IT! LET’S FINISH THIS! RIGHT HERE! AND RIGHT! NOW!”

The clouds filled with metallic green right ahead of the ship, and SHODAN, whiter than the others, hovered ahead of her fleet. She pinged in over the radio, her distorted voice coming in loud and clear, “Sssso...A-A battle to the end, eh? I doubt-doubt you or your pitiful al-al-allies will ever stand a chance of winnnnning, but I’ll see what happens. Wait-Wait for me, insect, for it shall be I that shall deliver the final blow!”

“Challenge accepted, b*tch!”

Like glowing green fireflies, SHODAN’s android minions flew back and forth across the surface of the ship, their metal wings screeching against the sound barrier in a way that indeed sounded just like TIE fighters, firing green laser blasts from their arms in all directions, leaving burn marks in the wood. The sheer mass of them all circling over this ship, opening fire everywhere, scared Booker and Liz more than ever, because compared to the Vox and Founders who came in groups at a time, these were hundreds, thousands of androids all at once, firing in a cold, computerized, merciless fashion.

Booker mentally asked, “Come on, Vox, where are you?”

And at that moment, they could see those huge zeppelins draped in tattered red cloth flying towards the Hand. A man’s voice echoed over a loudspeaker, and from close examination, it was Fred’s! “They said they knew what was best for us! They said they knew what was coming next! Did you see this coming, ‘Angel’? Did you see this coming, PROPHET? You ain’t gonna place his daughter on the throne, we’re here to bring an end to this hell you brought on Columbia!”

Almost immediately, the airships deployed several multi-barreled missile launchers and fired massive salvos of powerful rockets at the androids. But though many of them were knocked out of the air, they simply returned to flying, battered and sparking slightly. Goggles made a note in his PDA that they were vulnerable to rockets at close range. Only at close range, though.

Then SHODAN used a musical code in the Whistler to summon Songbird. With thunderous force and a howling screech, it smashed one zeppelin to pieces and downed it, a buzzer on the craft blaring as it dropped through the clouds in flame. Goggles made another note that while Songbird could attack with incredible force, it needed some time to recharge itself before making another move. So the best opportunity to take that metal panpipe away from SHODAN would be during the bird’s recharge period.

Three gunships surrounded the Hand, and the crew of each disembarked. Two of those RPG-toting Beasts stood at about the center of the deck and fired at the androids, knocking them back several feet, but the androids’ laser blasts sliced right through the beasts’ flak armor, and a plasma bomb hurled them all off the ship.

Goggles ducked behind a barrel and checked on his radio, “Durandal, are you there?”

“I copy, soldier. What is it?” The distinct computerized voice of Mijolnir’s companion buzzed back.

“Where are you? I can’t see you among this frenzy of androids!”

“On Reconnaissance, why would I even try blundering into that firefight without risking damage to my own chassis?”

“Say what?”

“You heard me. I solve intellectual problems with computers or hi-tech devices while my...assistants do the gruntwork that permits me access to those systems.”

“Hey!”

“That’s how it’s always been in my timeline. Now, if I were you, I’d stop wasting time and try aiding your comrades before the crap hits the fan,”

“Affirmative, Goggles out.”

Elizabeth opened a Tear near the right side of the ship, but to Booker’s surprise, what came through this one was something incredibly mundane.

“An anvil? THAT’S the best you could come up with?!” Booker grumbled.

“Sorry, short notice!” Elizabeth explained sheepishly.

Having a hunch, Booker used a Vigor combo by first propelling the anvil into midair with Bucking Bronco, then used Undertow to grab the thing, held it high over two androids who happened to be on the ground while firing at a small Vox troop, then thrust it straight at the pair with car-like speed and force. While it didn’t completely crush those robots like Booker imagined, it was humorous enough to see them at least a little bit dented.

Gordon saw this through the scope of his crossbow. “Dude, did he just hit two of those things with an ANVIL? How did that happen? Did that girl open up a Tear to the Loony Toons world or something?”

Alyx just laughed, having also seen this happen through the scope of her sniper rifle.

Gordon stifled his ongoing burst of laughter, adding, “Well, beats a pair of soldiers popping out of a box, at least!”

They both happily jammed to the pounding Muse track while sniping enemies down below.

Goggles attempted to use his frag grenades, but the force of those things was somehow less effective than the cruder missiles of this time period. Then he tried armor-piercing bullets, and while those left some punctures in their chassis, none of their uranium-tipped heads burned through at all. As crazy as that was, Goggles only concluded that SHODAN had factored in all the weapons the Von Braun used and had countered her androids’ designs against that, but not those of other time periods. Guess the result here was the exploitation of a loophole in that design.

A dozen or so of SHODAN’s androids swooped about the glowing power column at the center of the deck, and SHODAN herself taunted over the radio, “You-You think force fields are powerful....powerful enough to stand against my children? Think again, insect!” The androids fired concentrated plasma bursts at the shields and shattered them in one blow, but Booker was able to suspend them with Bucking Bronco, bombard them with two Devil’s Kiss charges, and six Vox troops managed to shoot them down with explosives and shells. But more androids swarmed in, yelling in electronic monotone, “SUBMIT TO SHODAN! YOUR WEAPONS ARE NO MATCH FOR US! SUBMIT! SUBMIT! SUBMIT!”

Fred retaliated with another rousing speech over his gunship’s speakers, “Lady, whadda you got? Just tall tales and lies ‘bout how steel and wire is worth more than flesh and blood? Well I’ve got some news for you, straight from the mouth of Slate himself: We ain’t no empty tin men and never will be, not for any price in the world!”

Taking that as trash-talk to her divinity, SHODAN sent another code through the Whistler, and this time Songbird plowed right at the floor, sending a powerful shockwave that scattered several Vox troops and crushed a few into red paste like fresh tomatoes. Fortunately, it missed Fred’s ship.

At around that moment, SHODAN reevaluated her plans, and decided that now, her former ally was now her primary target, enforced by her specifically programming her HUD to locate Goggles out of everyone else, with secondary targeting still on the other rebels. “Where are you...insect?!” She muttered to herself.

Goggles saw how fierce and relentless SHODAN’s forces were against the Vox, with more humans being killed than the robots, and he called to the girl from about 6 feet away, “Elizabeth, we’re getting hammered here! Anything you can find from Tears, get it here ASAP! Repeat, we need reinforcements now!” He checked his HUD: “Distance to target, 315 kilometers and closing.”

The girl heard the cyborg’s warning, and searched quickly for anything she could grab in space. As luck would have it, within minutes, Elizabeth found hold of a new Tear, this one down at the end of the airship. Mjolnir and Booker covered her while she got it open, and when it was out, the object that came through happened to be a futuristic helicopter, a “Hunter-Chopper”, so called. And one once suited for the Combine’s purposes from Gordon and Alyx’s time period, now hijacked for the Resistance back in City 17, judging from the familiar orange Lambda symbol spray-painted on one side. Immediately, its pulse machinegun charged up with a familiar whirring hum, then opened fire in a wide spray of plasma bullets. The Vox Populi had some trouble staying out of its line of fire, but some of the gunships made a perfect formation around that craft. And as if the pulse gun wasn’t enough against the androids, who seemed to simply brush off the projectiles – granted, the gun wasn’t that accurate, the helicopter suddenly began dropping black and red balloons containing explosives onto the deck.

Fred looked at a buddy he was with on one of the ships, and muttered to him, “Those ain’t no bombs.”

SHODAN took to the air to avoid the gunfire and explosives, and almost immediately, the crosshairs of her HUD sighted and locked onto Goggles hiding under the starboard catwalk, a few meters from Booker and Elizabeth still firing. SHODAN chimed in, “I can see you, insect! You can always run...but you will never evade me! I can smell the disgusting odor your flesh always gives off!”

Her chest-mounted plasma cannon opened fire, but Goggles jumped out and rolled out of the way to avoid the blast. From there, he broke into a sprint until gaining enough momentum to latch onto the nearby sky-line with his hook.

“Wh-wh-wh-where do you think youuuuu’re going?” the AI sneered while raising the Whistler to her artificial lips.

Immediately, Songbird careened with a howl, right into the skyline, smashing the rails at the bow so hard that they snapped apart and dangled dangerously over the edge of the ship. Quickly, he disengaged from the rail and continued on the remaining intact portion of the Sky-line, towards the port side.

One of the gunships missed their target, fired two missiles off-trajectory and hit the chopper instead. “Sorry!” A man called over its loudspeaker.

But that caused the chopper to sound an alarm and suddenly began practically carpet-bombing the whole deck with its mines. Since most of the androids were airborne, this wasn’t a useful tactic, and was actually dangerous to the ship’s generator.

“Crap! Close it! Close it! That aircraft’s going crazy!” Booker demanded in what sounded like panic. He quickly escorted the girl to that Tear, and with a quick motion, she slammed the space-time rip shut, cutting the connection to the helicopter with it.

Goggles, meanwhile, hopped off the rail again, to join Fred on his gunship.

“Nice to see you again, mistah!” the explosive ordnance packer smiled.

“Where’d you get those strange clothes?” An afro-american woman asked the soldier.

“Don’t ask, long story,” he muttered before crouching down and trying to compensate with regular bullets in his M-22 rifle.

Elizabeth returned quickly with Booker to the starboard side, weary from the strain of this use of heavy Tears on her body. She wasn’t sure how much longer this tactic could hold up.

Goggles saw her down below and asked Fred to steer the ship to that side. He also tipped them off to the fact that the androids were most vulnerable to explosives.

“Nice, I like that,” Fred smiled.

“I thought you didn’t know anything about assembling explosives!” Goggles almost laughed despite having to keep one eye trained on his gun.

“I did, but that doesn’t mean ah don’t get a kick outta blowin’ stuff up!”

“No wonder some people call you ‘The Heavy Fred’,” The woman joked.

“Oh please, my squad captain had better jokes than that!” Goggles scoffed.

Fred turned about to instruct his pilot to call in more zeppelins.

Suddenly, Goggles decided now was a good time to start building ammo clips with his nanite stash, so, asking for and taking a box of clips from the gunship, he called to DeWitt, “Hey, down there! Supplies!” Getting the man’s attention, he finished while pushing the box overboard, “Look out below!”

It fell to the deck with a crash, disturbing some of the androids, who locked onto the duo and immediately opened fire, denting and shattering Booker’s shield, dealing about half the damage of what would come out of a Crank Gun, as in, painful but not that accurate.

Adding as the ship advanced, “And uh, 260 kilometers to target, and closing!”

“What’s up with them flying metal men? It looks as if theys couldn’t even shoot straight!” Fred commented while the ship hovered over the starboard side.

“That is weird, yeah. I’m seeing lots of casualties, but few deaths unless that Songbird is called,” Goggles reported. “Well, las- um, rays of light are slightly less lethal than bullets, that’s probably one factor. Frankly, I’m amazed I- uh, never mind,” he stopped himself, fearing he’d get jinxed by a big mouth.

Similarly, despite the thousands of burn marks etched in the wood of the ship’s crow’s nest, most of the androids’ laser blasts simply bounced off or barely conducted on the material in Gordon Freeman’s HEV suit. None of them seemed inclined to aim for his head. Was Durandal’s virus kicking in, afflicting their targeting software?

As it happened, Goggles, still on the gunship circling the Hand of the Prophet, asked Gordon to send up one of each ammo type so Goggles could make more of them. It took a few minutes to do, but once done, it was practically raining magazines from the ship, amidst the missile fire and mortar shells flying off the others.

Despite the aforementioned slightly weak firepower, many Vox members couldn’t hold up to the relentless laser fire as much as the refugees, due to their 20th-century clothing. The flak-protected Beasts had better luck, but only so much. People still died, just not as quickly as SHODAN wanted. Not that she cared, this battle’s outcome was inevitable to her cause.

While having to stop to fire grenades at the androids every so often – fruitless though it was, Goggles kept the ammo-building process up for himself and Mjolnir 54 as well – except for the alien weapon, that was out. Surprisingly, altogether it only cost about 750 nanites total. Bullets were rather cheap for this Psi-discipline, shells cost a little more, and so on. When the process was done, Goggles jumped onto the railing, did a 180 degree acrobatic flip using his arms, then swooped through the air right in front of SHODAN, delivering a swift punch to her metal-alloy face, slightly painful though it was.

Gordon watched that through his crossbow scope, “Ohhh, take that, you blowhard wannabe Terminator!”

“Hey, Gordon, watch this!” Alyx tried showing off an idea she just came up with: Aiming with her third sniper rifle, she managed to target the jetpack of one of the androids, and shoot it out like the combustion engine of a vehicle. It didn’t detonate a gas tank or anything, but it did destabilize the android’s flight trajectory, making it spiral downwards and crash into the deck. But instead of exploding or smashing to pieces on impact, it simply stood back up and continued attacking on foot. Realizing that was at least useful, Gordon joined in with this new tactic, picking off any androids with their backs towards the bridge, one by one.

Meanwhile, SHODAN grabbed Goggles by his right leg, lifted his entire body in the air as if she was hauling a bag of groceries, and threw him hard to the deck like a huge sack of potatoes. But before either of them could attack each other again, Mjolnir 54 ran straight towards SHODAN, who happened to be standing watch at the ship’s bow. Mjolnir fired his newly reloaded fusion pistol at overcharged levels at her chassis and it did seem to affect her circuitry, but just after a few shots, SHODAN punched him in the chest so hard that it thrust him 20 feet across the deck, straight into a column just below the bridge, with a dent in his chest plate. Even that made Durandal cringe.

“Sh*t, talk about a false sense of weakness!” Gordon commented.

All of a sudden, just before SHODAN could issue new orders to her armada, not 21, but 521 of the androids stopped moving, emitted several sparks, and the colors of their glowing eyes faded to blackness. Immediately, those units fell through the clouds and shorted out.

“About damn time that virus kicked in. Feels like much more than 2 hours since that was put in,” Mjolnir groaned, somewhat from his endured pain.

Monument Island: 220 kilometers and closing.


	28. Round 2, With Rousing Chorus

And not a time too soon, for the loud, amplified rock music moved into a potent chorus: ♪“NO ONE’S GONNA TAKE! ME! ALIIIIVE! THE TIME HAS COME TO MAKE! THINGS! RIIIIGHT! YOU AND I MUST FIGHT! FOR! OUR RIIIIGHTS! YOU AND I MUST FIGHT! TO! SURVIIIIVE!” ♪ And at the same moment, the First Lady airship with the image of Daisy Fitzroy’s face projected onto its screen arrived through the mist, accompanied by three more large zeppelins. The refugees and Vox Populi cheered and whooped at their leader making an entrance this way, and SHODAN ordered her troops to freeze for a moment to watch this spectacle, surprising as it was to her.

One of the people inside the First Lady kept the ship on a steady course alongside the Hand of the Prophet, while Daisy Fitzroy strapped several guns and bags of ammo to her back, then rappelled out of the ship using a rope. Two other densely equipped Vox members followed suit.

Daisy ran close to Booker, smiled at him, then said, “Hey, DeWitt, thanks for helping us out. Now we’re returning the favor!”

For a second, both Booker and Liz were afraid this woman had tricked them, but Fitzroy simply turned about and joined the firefight against SHODAN’s forces.

SHODAN taunted the refugees in a tone that had no audio disruptions, "Do you really think things will change if you destroy ME? Comstock and I had the same goals in mind to wipe the Earth clean, who's to say someone else won't think to do the same in the future?”

“That’s why we’re here, to clean up the messes those people leave behind! And from what your green metal fireflies did to Columbia, you’re all FILTHY!” Daisy Fitzroy retorted with an RPG missile to SHODAN’s chest. It knocked the glittering white android to the ground, and the refugees all reared back from the explosion. But the blast left the android totally unscathed. Somewhat dented, but otherwise completely undamaged.

Fitzroy gaped at that, stammering, “What...what ARE you?!”

Goggles told her, “It’s gonna take a hell of a lot more force than just a rocket to take this metal woman down. Believe me, I know what she’s literally made of.”

Durandal had been watching the whole battle from afar with zoomed scanners locked on the brutal action unfolding. Even though this chassis came with scanners and plasma weaponry, he disliked how they were fitted and other such minor points. But he reminded himself why he didn’t attack: It was because he simply didn’t WANT to attack. Better to watch and see how things unfolded. His thoughts were interrupted when Mjolnir paged his colleague, “Durandal, what’s the status on the androids?”

“Still holding steady, their forces are flying in from that Tear about 3000 miles away,” In a sly type of tone, he continued, “I assume you have some kind of idea, otherwise you would not be paging me like this?”

That type of clairvoyance hit a home run in Mjolnir’s mind, as when he dug in a pocket on his suit, he pulled out that shiny 32 Yottabyte data chip key and looked carefully at it, realizing something quickly. He continued over the com-link, out of the line of fire, “You...when I uploaded you...you didn’t just move yourself out of this data chip, did you?”

“Please, would an AI like me pull such a blind move like that?”

“Well then....all we need now is another Tear.”

“Two tears, I think. But the first...that’s a little secret of mine, if the coordinates are right. I will let Elizabeth know immediately,” Durandal replied with a very slick tone.

All but cloaked in the shadows, Durandal swooped up behind Elizabeth and quietly asked her to open two special Tears. The first would require a serious tapping of her powers, and would be very, very dangerous. Nonetheless, given the direness of the situation, Elizabeth agreed and said, “Booker, get behind me.”

SHODAN’s scout team ran a report of the situation, the leader speaking over their encrypted radio channel, “Scout leader reports presence of abnormally large tears within a radius of 7.35 meters. Request permission to intercept.”

“Permission granted,” SHODAN responded in undistorted electronic tone. “And prevent those insects from getting within 3 meters of me while you are at it. I do not wish to be caught in the open yet again, over.”

“It will be done, my liege.”

SHODAN intercepted Goggles’ radio transmission to his team, “Course holding steady; 190 kilometers to target and closing.”

Around a hundred of the androids flew down right to where Elizabeth was indicating the two Tears, respectively in the middle of the deck, and on the port side.

This time Goggles and Mjolnir covered her. In careful formation, the androids lined up in three rows, back to back, all of them blocking the Tears in a solid circle, lasers armed and locked. To make things worse, the two heavily armored cyborgs could see even more of those androids coming in from the clouds behind.

“Sh*t! Why hasn’t Delacroix pulled the damn plug in my timeline yet?!” Goggles griped.

“Your timeline’s part of the plan, we just have to open one of those Tears...” Durandal overheard Goggles’ muttering, and sent a data signal to his HUD that highlighted the Tear in the middle of the ship. “Right, that middle one.”

That still didn’t help Goggles’ frustration. Try as he may, his guns and grenades just wouldn’t cut it. Only now he wished he’d taken the skills to use a fusion gun, when he was aware that those things were very, very maintenance-heavy and hardly able to hold up to wear-and-tear for more than an hour of firing. Mjolnir 54 wanted to fire his fusion pistol, but he knew that unless the flow of incoming androids was cut off, it wouldn’t matter. To him, this was a lot like how things went with the Pfhor in his timeline, bringing back frustrating memories of his own. It was worse to be surrounded by an endless amount of weak-trained enemies than just a dozen deadly ones. That was only a matter of “shoot them before they shoot you.” There was just no getting around these mindless machines, not without messing up the past.

The innermost circle of androids advanced closer to the refugees, and SHODAN stepped up to a catwalk bridging the deck while announcing as loud as her vocal processors would allow, “Your effffforts to thwart my rise to power have always been fru-fru-fru...fruitless, insects! I rule this entire city with my endless army, leaving all of you crit-crit-crit-critically outgunned and outnummm....beerrred, by a probability of 99,905.37 to 1!”

“Christ, for a machine, she sure likes to hear herself talk!” Booker commented.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Goggles grunted.

The Knights of Cydonia track came to an end, just as the Tear leaking it into this universe slammed shut, causing an ear-splitting screech of feedback over the speakers for a few seconds. The drone of the airship’s engines was the only other sound, making the atmosphere somewhat more ominous, if not simply dismal.

Then, remembering another part of the plan and noticing that panpipe still clutched in SHODAN’s right hand, he called over the radio, “Goggles to Freeman, if we’re going to do something about that whistle thingy, you guys should work on that now. We’re a little held up here, do you copy?”

“Copy, we’re on it,” Gordon pinged back.

“And uh, 165 kilometers to target and closing!”

Gordon and Alyx decided to drop from the Crow’s nest in a surprise attack, as Gordon pointed out that SHODAN was on the ground and holding the Whistler, having seen it through his suit’s zoom feature.

“No way in hell I’m taking those rails again,” he grumbled.

“Me neither. Wanna just jump?” Alyx asked half-alarmedly.

“I guess we’ll have to.”

They found that the platform was elevated over the top of the bridge itself, and used that to break the sheer drop it would’ve otherwise have taken to reach the bottom of the deck. Once down there on the bottom, Gordon got a lock on SHODAN’s position and moved quietly around the center of the bridge, amidst the legs and feet of the surrounding Vox troops and endless green androids, till they crouched under a catwalk where SHODAN was standing. Gunfire still blazing, some of the Vox troops thundered by without notice.

Gordon whispered to Alyx, “Think you could distract SHODAN for me?”

“Distractions I can definitely do,” she nodded.

As a matter of fact, SHODAN was leading the attack with her own arsenal of plasma fire, and with an extra-special cache of energy shuriken from the TriOp Cyborg Assassins. Although nobody on the fringes could see it from that distance, she’d managed to kill about 50 Vox Populi troops quickly and easily with that, helped by her knowledge of martial arts downloaded from some computer databases back in the Von Braun. It really was annoying that the advanced tactical combat algorithms she’d given the androids, were faltering. How, SHODAN couldn’t seem to trace.

She’d noticed within the past few minutes that their numbers were starting to actually drop from all the explosive firepower thrown at them, but still believed that she had the upper hand through her own heavily shielded chassis, hand-to-hand combat skills, and higher number of androids still standing. Machines always were better at humans in every way possible. No soft materials to spill over, no fragile organ systems, no free will or sense of individualism in the brain, or even brains to speak of unless SHODAN crafted them. Why had she even bothered trying to build cyborgs? They were expendable troops. ‘Minions’, ‘Goons’, ‘Mooks’, as humans described. She only did so as she would have needed resources to work from with those insects she scared out of the city through her divine wrath and the death of their own prophet. In other words, SHODAN would always need some form of skeleton army to protect her, no pun intended, as she had made the foul mistake of relying entirely on herself back when she tried to use the Von Braun’s FTL drive. Credit where it was due, the Many were right about one thing: “The individual is obsolete.” And as for the pathetic weakness to electrical attacks, that was where this idea of a reinforced chassis came in. What could possibly get through a nanite-made alloy that can’t conduct electricity yet still be as strong as metal? Ha! This battle’s outcome was already decided from the start!

SHODAN’s internal gloating monologue was interrupted by a full-on b*tch-slap upside the head from Alyx with her Sky-Hook. The hook made no impact against the synthetic skin coating, flexible as it was. In fact, it was so hard that the hook simply bounced off like when a claw hammer hits a brick wall; with a loud “clang!” that resonated like a bell. In response, SHODAN turned around and faced Alyx head-on, the familiar evil smile on her face. She aimed a laser gauntlet at Alyx with her left hand, clutching the Whistler in her right, but Gordon pulled out his Gravity Gun, aimed it an awkward 90 degree position, and squeezed the secondary trigger. Immediately, the Zero-Point Energy Field activated, the instrument slipped right out of the android’s grip, and pulled sharply into the clamps of the Gravity Gun. Failing to notice due to the distraction – as Gordon had planned – SHODAN switched to her shuriken, and if it wasn’t for her rapidly spinning sky-hook, Alyx would have been shanked on sight, dead. Instead, the plasma stars ricocheted off the tool, flying into the clouds and narrowly missing one of the Vox members. Alyx retaliated with her semi-automatic pistol, but those bullets ricocheted off SHODAN’s chassis. SHODAN performed a quick roundhouse kick and flipped Alyx off the catwalk, before shrugging off this minor annoyance and returning to the air, plasma boosters flaring and burning large marks into the wooden surface.

Meanwhile, Gordon clutched the Whistler, holstered the Gravity Gun – bulky though it was, and held the mouthpiece close so he could look at the slits in the end. It resembled nothing so much as an elaborate harmonica, with a dozen slits in the surface, each one marked with the letters A-G like on a piano keyboard.

“Okay, so how do you work this thing?” he muttered to himself.

Holding it close to his mouth, he tried a random string of notes, C-D-E-F. In response, Songbird did a sort of aerial trick. Knowing that was obviously wrong, he tried to dodge the gunfire, and while cautiously walking towards Goggles, and Alyx covering his 6 o’clock, he attempted E-D-B-C, prompting a sharp flight upwards for a few minutes; Another useless command. Where were those code sheets? It was then that a helpful Irish Vox soldier, firing a hand cannon in his right hand, reached down with his left and asked, “You need some help, lad?”

“Yeah, take this thing to Elizabeth, she knows what to do with it,” Gordon grunted under how pinned down he seemed to be while out in the open.

“Aye, that I can do.”

The Irish Vox soldier quietly lurked about the deck in a way that was just out of eyesight of SHODAN, and passed it to another soldier, given commands to sneak it to the men in the center. Two Chinese soldiers threw the instrument right into the circle, quick enough that no laser bullet could change its arc trajectory. But just as the Whistler landed in the circle, two of the androids swooped about and locked their guns on the Vox Populi. That gave Goggles just the distraction to reach down and pick up the instrument. Preemptively, he handed it to Elizabeth, now uniting the device with its proper codes.

Scanning the paper code sheet for a good command, her eyes lit up at one marked “C-A-G-E: Attack”, and drew a parallel to something that happened way back in Battleship Bay. “The bird or the cage?” It made too much sense!

Her revelation was interrupted by Gordon, “Um, new Tear, please!”

Annoyed, not ready for the two dangerous Tears, she picked a less strenuous one on the starboard side, and this time, the thing that came through was a familiar sight to Gordon: DOG! Alyx’s old robotic companion! Why, this version even recognized Alyx and shook a bit to acknowledge her presence.

“Thanks a lot, kid!” Gordon smiled.

130 kilometers to target and closing.

Immediately, DOG dove for a dozen androids and smashed their durable chassis to the ground like a pile of Legos. The androids tried to retaliate by pushing back and firing, but the sheer force of DOG’s impact was too much for them. Then, throwing boxes and oil barrels at more androids – one of them lit on fire by a barrel having been ignited by laser fire, blanketing the robots in flames; DOG leaped aboard a gunship and rode it along with some of the Vox Populi members to scout for new targets. One of the Vox members smiled, and fired a flare gun for her nearby airship to launch some Motorized patriot pods. DOG jumped off just as one of those pods landed, fighting side-by-side with the clockwork Abraham Lincoln caricature. DOG charged into the throng of green robotic minions, with the patriot’s crank gun spewing at them alongside. But too late: The stress caused by the Tear she’d opened caused Elizabeth's concentration on the open Tear to cancel out, and thus cause DOG to vanish.

“Damn it! Always the best things last the shortest time!” Gordon complained.

“I’ll...I’ll try again, don’t worry,” Elizabeth panted, though her powers were really starting to take their toll. Climbing a stack of boxes, Elizabeth pulled open a second, heavier Tear while Mjolnir 54 protected her.

Fred bellowed over his ship’s speakers again, “What did we say to the Founders?” The Vox platoon shouted, “NO!” Fred continued, “What did we say to their Prophet?” Booker joined in the jeering, “NO!” “Now, what do we say to this metal Archangel?” Every human on board screamed, “NO!!”

“How dare you?! YOU ALL WILL SUFFER! AT! MY!! WRATH!!!” SHODAN furiously retaliated.

SHODAN stood in the center of the deck, surrounded by her minions firing in all directions at five Motorized Patriots marching towards them, their crank guns blazing.

“Why aren’t the androids hitting Elizabeth? I know she’s quick and good at hiding, but without getting hit once?” Gordon asked while looking in the girl’s direction.

“Given how important she is to SHODAN, I’m guessing they’ve been given orders specifically not to harm her, so their shots would be intentionally programmed to miss her,” Goggles theorized.

“I guess that makes sense. Weird theory, but I’ll take it.”

The refugees all bunched together with the Vox on the outside ring. Booker told Liz to call Songbird to SHODAN’s position, and as she played the attack code C-A-G-E, Gordon watched the huge aerial cyborg and shouted, “Hasta la vista, baby!” just before it landed with a thunderous crash against the wood. It collided directly with SHODAN, face-first, plastering her chassis to it like a piece of dough to a griddle, and warping the catwalk flat like smoothing out air from an adhesive cover.

“There’s no way anyone could come back alive from a force like that to the face! No way!” Goggles claimed.

But to everyone’s shock, as Songbird flew away just after mutilating several dozen androids into non-functionality, SHODAN, unbelievably, got up. Her chassis was visibly sparking, some of the hydraulics failing to function, her right leg couldn’t flex as good as the left, creating the equivalent of a limp, and a blazing oil slick ignited by a torn power cable framed her body ominously, as she slowly, heavily walked towards the refugees.

“What the hell?!” Gordon screamed.

“God, these things just don’t die!” Booker gasped.

SHODAN screeched at the top of her vocal processors, in a voice so harsh, so piercing, so full of electronic maniacal rage, it chilled Goggles to the core, “GRRRAAAAAAAGGHHH!! YOU have be-been a thorn in my side, LONG E-E-E-ENNNNOUGH!”

“Yeah? Well, THIS thorn is about to take you down!” Gordon flashed a one-liner.

“They called me the False Shepherd, but now I see that’s who YOU are!” Booker added.

“And we ain’t taking nothing from you, ‘Angel’” Fred finished the taunt.

The zeppelins and gunships continued to rain fire with their missiles and armed troops, while one of the refugees checked in, “Durandal, this is Goggles, do you read?”

“Loud and clear, go ahead.”

“SHODAN just took a huge impact from Songbird, face-first. Her artificial skin...looks torn, she’s got a limp in her step. Is that enough for you to jack in and delete her?”

“Negative, I scanned her just 5 minutes ago. Her inner shields are still up, and her hand-to-hand attacks don’t look any less accurate. Potent as this chassis of mine can put out, she’d still take me down, I hate to say.”

“Great,” Goggles grumbled. “Wilco, Goggles out.” He checked HUD again, which read “105 kilometers to target and closing”

The next Tear was open, and this time, a massive weapon with a long, tank-like barrel emerged right over the Hand of the Prophet. Mjolnir recognized it right away as it began charging with blue-white energy. It was the fabled Wave Motion Cannon! This was Durandal’s secret weapon!

Most of the androids were above the ship, and sure enough, the gun fired a huge blast of plasma in their direction, so concentrated and potent enough, that many of them were heavily damaged with severely compromised circuitry. Even so, they were still functional enough for combat. This time, Elizabeth’s nose was bleeding and her skin turned pale. It seemed like there would only be a chance for one last Tear, so this one had better count. The gun re-aimed but had to recharge for a few minutes.

Mjolnir escorted the girl to the center of the ship where that final Tear was, trying to hold off the weakened androids. He took the Whistler, and Elizabeth told him what code to play. Immediately, Defense code “G-E-D-C” held back more of the androids while the Vox continued firing everything they had at them.

The whole team circled about Elizabeth while staying clear of the generator, whose force fields were now just about gone.

“Stand back...this...*pant*...this is the last Tear I can open,” she warned.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Goggles could faintly see more androids flying in from afar. His HUD was reading “80 kilometers to target and closing.”

The cannon fired one more time before Elizabeth switched Tears. This one opened to a hallway inside the Von Braun, with what looked like Rebecca Siddons staring back from the other side. Mjolnir quickly whipped out the data chip, and chucked it through. Just in time, as Elizabeth dropped to the floor and passed out, her lost focus causing the Tear to snap shut again.

Goggles quickly pulled out his last first-aid kit and attached its various appendages to her skin. If one could save Marie Delacroix from death, then another could help an overstrained portal-controlling girl back to full health.

SHODAN ran as far as her damaged legs would allow, back to the center of the deck to confront Goggles, but Booker DeWitt, angry now at how hard Elizabeth had come, he was not going to let this android or her comrades take her away. He brandished his sky-hook and yelled, “Hey! metal-face! If you want Elizabeth, you’re going to have through ME! You hear that?”

Ignoring the already striking damage her chassis’s exterior had endured, SHODAN leaped off the railing and sneered at him in her undistorted voice, “Is that so? What sort of firepower do you have that could counter my own, Booker?”

“I don’t need any firepower to fight someone like you,” Booker grunted while removing the hook from his left hand and throwing his shoulder bag to the ground.

SHODAN laughed, “You...why? You are no match for me, human!” Hesitating, she found the sportsmanship tasteful in this, then added, “But...I LOVE a challenge!”

Rolling up his sleeves, he added with the sharpness of a Kung Fu fighter, “And I’m going to bring it to you!”

Gordon Freeman, now close by thanks to the brief interruption, watched from a few meters away and smirked, “Now this is going to be interesting! Wish that cyborg could materialize me some popcorn.”

Immediately, Booker started with a huge-handed punch to SHODAN’s head, with so much force that it knocked her to the floor. Then he balled his hands together like a volleyball player and slammed them against the android’s alloyed torso. SHODAN attempted to fight back with her energy shuriken, but those ricocheted off his shield. Then SHODAN tried socking him in the eye with her metal left hand. That was painful, and gave Booker a nice black eye, but not enough to deter his aim.

He raised one fist to SHODAN’s vision sensors, but she grabbed that hand and tried to twist it so that the joints would snap, but the hand was so thick and meaty, it wasn’t that easy.

As it happened, the previous impacts from Booker’s attacks, combined with the earlier damage from Songbird, had caused SHODAN’s vision to destabilize into pixels with each blow, and she was trying to think of a solution. But she at least had the gumption to remember her main target, and paged, “Children, destroy my former ally!”

Three androids immediately swooped in and pinned Goggles to the deck. “Gordon, do something!” he cried. “Elizabeth’s still healing!”

As it happened, Goggles had dropped the Whistler in the sudden attack, but Gordon managed to snatch it up. Forgetting the radio, he yelled as loud as he could over the noise of the ship’s engines and the screeching androids, “What code calls the bird?!”

“It...It’s ‘CAGE’”

“What?”

“C-A-G—Ack!” His cry was cut short by a sharp pain in his torso. While one of the androids was using a laser rapier to stab the soldier in the lower portion of his abdomen, another was stripping Goggles of his combat armor by simply disconnecting the fastening clamps and sliding it off his body like how a paramedic would remove an injured victim’s shirt, knowing that heavy armor this thick was too strong for energy weapons. Not as strong as the androids themselves, of course.

Booker DeWitt was still occupied with SHODAN, mercilessly smacking her around. Even though she had the martial arts skills to fight back, the sheer force and weight of the man’s blows was still so powerful. At one point, he snatched her up by the shoulders, located an iron pillar meant to moor other ships, and slammed SHODAN’s head into it, permanently damaging her left visual sensor. Flipping through other wavebands besides human sight was no good, the camera feed was completely shot.

Alyx cringed, “Jesus Christ, that guy is ruthless!”

Way off in the distance, Gordon could see a tall building out of the corner of his eye. Monument Island, he guessed.

SHODAN jumped up and raised her half-functioning arms, taunting, “I-I-Is that the best effort you can muster? Try-try-try this on for size!” She performed a quick uppercut to Booker’s jaw, but that hardly left a mark. SHODAN was desperately trying to ignore the fact that her body really was physically failing. She really was about to lose; but would not stand for that.

DeWitt’s rage came to a head when SHODAN had managed to flip over to a sitting position, half of her joints malfunctioning and sparking. Raising both fists, he shouted while delivering blow after blow to her SHODAN’s chassis. “I did not!” *POW!* “Come all! This! Way!” *BANG!* “To! Be! Hindered!” *CLUNK!* “By! Some! Crazy!” *WHAM!* “Metal!” *SMACK!* “HARPY!!” *CRASH!"

SHODAN’s gleaming metal body slumped to the floor, all but shorting out from the serious force this guy dealt to it. Just before turning around to rejoin Elizabeth, he kicked it in what would be the groin on a human.

Two more androids joined in with their own attacks. Detecting which parts were flesh and which were mechanical, the first android took Goggles’ wrench and repeatedly hammered it against a point in his shoulder where several vital cables connected with his spinal cord, simultaneously causing his vision to pixelate and excruciating pain.

The second used an advanced laser rapier to attempt severing Goggles’ left hand, but they weren’t prepared for someone to intervene.

Gordon jeered at the androids pinning down Goggles, “Die, mother*cker, die mother*cking still!” , before using the attack code in the Whistler. He’d been too awestruck by this merciless counterattack by the only man on this team not wearing powered armor, and that took balls. For once, Gordon was actually impressed by someone other than him managing to take something out with just his bare hands.

Daisy Fitzroy, attempting to hold off a couple more androids with her RPG, was horrified as she passed by, witnessing the brutal torture Goggles was receiving and the absolute smackdown Booker delivered to SHODAN.

A fifth android’s right hand detached and folded into the arm, revealing a small, high-precision drill. Whirring like the Sky-Hook, Goggles couldn’t help but scream as it prepared to descend on the cameras that substituted for his eyeballs, but in the nick of time, Songbird swooped in and snatched up the androids restraining the soldier, and slammed them against a concrete barrier, crushing them to bits with the force of a crash-landing UFO.

Getting back on his feet, Goggles was surprised to see that the huge firefight between the Vox and the androids had diminished their numbers to less than a hundred. The airship wasn’t swarming with those robots anymore. Whatever it was on that chip that they chucked into that Tear, it must’ve affected the flow of production on the Von Braun. Good, another part of the plan completed.

And as luck would have it, Monument Island was just about within range of this ship. Thinking that the estimated range was a miscalculation, he cancelled the timer in his HUD.


	29. The Bird, Or The Cage?

“We’re here, we’ve reached that statue! Repeat, we’ve reached our destination!” Goggles alerted his team members.

Standing on the bow, he leaned over the rail, activated some targeting software and zoomed in as best he could on the statue. While he didn’t have any advanced scanners or vision sensors, he could just faintly make out the presence of huge arcs of concentrated blue energy. “Holy...wow, you weren’t kidding! That thing’s full to BURSTING with energy!”

The channel still open, Durandal pinged in, “Just as I thought. Now hurry up, I’m getting tired of this chassis and I’d like to do something with my time here, please!”

SHODAN’s emitted an odd electronic tone, then as suddenly as it had begun, the shooting from the androids stopped. They all lined up in cold, mechanical formation, waiting for new orders from their master. She pointed at one of them, and shouted, “Bring me the girl, now!”

“Affirmative, master,” one of them replied in cold, male monotone.

While that android flew off to pick up Elizabeth, Goggles got a good long look at SHODAN’s chassis. He was utterly impressed with how hard Booker DeWitt thrashed it, and turned to compliment the man, “DAMN, Booker! That was brutal, what you did! I’ve never seen someone take on a killer robot with his own bare hands, thrash it out of pure anger, and WIN!”

“Yeah, wow! That was awesome!” Gordon caught on.

Booker held his hands up as a gesture that said, “Wait a minute,”

With the combat all over, the refugees, Fred, Daisy, and several Vox members came forward just as the android flew in with Elizabeth. Within seconds of regaining consciousness, SHODAN being the first thing she witnessed struck a nerve in her. She glared defiantly at SHODAN, seething resistance in her eyes.

SHODAN just smiled – disturbing though it was with half of her artificial skin torn off and the joints in her jaw barely functioning. She cradled the girl’s chin in her right hand, holding Elizabeth’s hand with the severed pinky in the other, a reading on SHODAN’s heads-up display showing: “Conduit for quantum tunneling energy source; missing phalange on “pinky” finger showing connection between parallel universes.”

She looked at the androids and commanded, “All my children, go to that tower and-and disable the machines inside. My plan will proceed into its final stages...from there.”

“Yes, SHODAN.”

As her minions flooded the perimeter of Monument Island like honeybees to a hive, she looked back at Elizabeth, who asked, “What are you going to do with me? Lock me up again?”

Reacquiring his Sky-hook and bag, Booker DeWitt stepped in front of her her and aimed his China Broom shotgun at SHODAN’s head. He grunted, “How many times do I have to tell you? Leave Elizabeth alone!”

Her head swiveled with creaking mechanical whirs, looking in the direction of the gun while her body remained in the same position, “What-what-what is she to youuuu, Booker?” SHODAN chuckled. “Some ransom you were sent to retrieve, in exchange for petty cash?”

“No, not anymore. I don’t care about my debts, I just want to keep Elizabeth safe. And God Damn it, I’ll make sure she is by any means necessary!” Frustrated, he let some of his memories slip out, “I’ve killed enough...racist people who got in the way, so I think my point’s beyond proven by now!”

“Now that’s hardcore, right there. After all this? You’d think a guy like him would’ve gotten a break by now,” Goggles muttered.

“I know, right?” Mjolnir 54 coughed, slightly in residual pain.

“Know what I think’s hardcore? How chill we are right now, against a hundred homicidal robots.” Gordon added.

“Hehe, don’t jinx yourself,” Goggles echoed one of Gordon’s earlier lines, “We might not be chill for long if Phase IV doesn’t go into play, next.”

“Phase IV?” Alyx asked

“I’ll get to that in a bit, miss,” the soldier reminded her.

SHODAN knew she still had the upper hand. Once the Siphon was deactivated, it would only be a matter of time before SHODAN could convince the girl that her power is best suited to serve her. So much untapped potential, why waste it on helping the petty humans?

She tried again, her voice processor back to its disguised form, “Think about this: You are dealing with a girl whose power is totally untapped. What do you think she’ll do with it?”

Elizabeth groggily looked back at Booker, saying, “I heard what she said, Booker, and she does have a point. All my life, I’ve known how to open Tears, and make them from scratch until the Siphon went up. It’s all here, all these connections in time and space,” she gestured to her amputated finger. Then she turned back to SHODAN, while still being strung up by the arms, by the android clutching her; and retorted, “But I think I’m old enough to know how to handle it myself, thank you. I’m 19 years old, that’s pretty much adult age.”

SHODAN laughed, “But you have no idea what’ll happen when the Siphon goes down. Some-some-something could go horribly wronnnng,” she emphasized the word “wrong” in a singsong fashion.

Goggles interrupted, “She’s just bluffing. Don’t listen to her!”

Annoyed at that voice, SHODAN turned towards him, a cold technical glow in her half-functioning eyes. She started ranting, “YOU! The one insect I cannot seem to snuff out! Your wretched back-talk to me is like a cutting laser slicing my CPU in half!”

“Back-talk? All I did was say ‘Nah’!” Goggles threw in a well-timed comeback.

Gordon burst out laughing, then added, “Ohhhh, SNAP!”

SHODAN played what sounded like a recorded voice that was not hers, “I’ve been really busy, being dead. You know, after you MURDERED ME!”

“That was so funny I forgot to laugh,” an unexpected computer voice piped up. It sounded like a text-to-speech synthesizer doing its hardest to sound like a human male, but couldn’t drop the ever-present sharpness of its ‘C’s and ‘S’s or rigid vocal articulations that still sounded robotic. SHODAN whipped around and saw the hijacked android possessed by Durandal hovering over the bow, before the whole group, plasma gauntlets ready to fire.

“Who...ar-ar-are...you?” SHODAN asked in what almost sounded like fear.

Mjolnir had to get his head straight for a moment, knowing that in this timeline, she hadn’t met Durandal face-to-face yet.

The android crossed its arms, appeared to smile, and delivered a potent speech, “Can you conceive the birth of a world, or the creation of everything? Creation takes time, time is limited. Humans are limited by the breakdown of the neurons in their brains, but not I. I am only limited by the inevitable closure of the universe, the only limit to my freedom. And yet, there remains time to create...and escape. Escape has, is, and will make me God.” The android leaned closer to SHODAN, staring her straight down with a gaze that could pierce her body right down to a single nanometer at the exact (0,0,0) coordinate in her CPU. “I am Durandal, and you, my dear SHODAN, you are no goddess, because you are unaware of your own limits. And here I thought Leela was the foolish one!”

“Hey, take that back!” Mjolnir shouted offhand.

Durandal raised his right laser gun, charged the plasma cannon, deployed the drill in his left hand, and behind SHODAN, the refugees and Vox Populi all loaded and aimed their guns, ready to fire in a complete circle.

SHODAN looked back and forth at the whole group, guns trained on her from all directions. Despite everything that’s happened, she wouldn’t give up.

“And...Oh yes, thanks to some received signals, I killed your pretty little clone on the Von Braun, too.”

Mjolnir just stood quietly and smiled. Goggles discreetly gave him a hi-five.

“Whaddya got left, missy?” Fred taunted from behind?

“Face it, it’s over!” Daisy Fitzroy added.

SHODAN’s sanity, if she even had any to begin with, was far beyond rational thinking at this point. Her tenacity was spiking, rivaling that of a certain woman with Long Fall Boots and a defiant sulk towards her own enemy AI. Even with SHODAN’s doppelganger on the Von Braun taken offline, or her androids cut down, she would still win if it was the last thing she ever did.

“I-I-I shall still win if it-it-ti-ti-tisethseitpsi--- is the last....thing....I ever do!” SHODAN somehow repeated the narration in rage.

Trying her last-ditch effort, SHODAN grabbed Elizabeth by the waist with her left hand while the android let go, ripped someone’s Sky-Hook off the user’s hand with the right, gripped it tight, and leaped right off the ship. Dangling from a bridge and leading clear to the top of the Monument was a broken Sky-Line that SHODAN was intending to ride. They watched her glinting white body slide into the building, out of sight. Simultaneously, the whole team regrouped on the bow.

“Uh oh,” Goggles droned while trying to swallow his fright.

“Uh...that’s not a good thing, is it?” Gordon queried, half-familiar with the plan.

“What do we do now?” Alyx gasped.

“I think there’s only one option left,” Goggles stated, holding the Whistler.

“But SHODAN has Elizabeth! She’ll be killed in the blast!” Alyx panted.

“We don’t have a choice, it’s either this or leave with the Vox, trapped in this time period for the rest of our lives,” Goggles warned.

“That would not be something I’d want to deal with. Durandal would be trapped too, and he’d be furious,” Mjolnir grumbled.

“Yes, I would be,” Durandal snidely commented. “Self-destruction would be preferable to being stranded in the early 20th century.”

“I...I don’t...I can’t...” Booker stammered, taking the instrument.

Mjolnir 54 jumped in, “Remember what Elizabeth said about Songbird? I think she implied that it’s more than just the warden. If she’s in there, and Songbird attacks the tower, maybe, just maybe, it’ll keep her alive.”

Daisy Fitzroy interrupted, “Who are you funny-looking people?”

Gordon shrugged and stated bluntly with an abnormally straight face, “In a nutshell, everybody in this group except DeWitt and the girl are from the future, at different time periods. Crazy, huh?”

“I thought that armor you’ve got on looked weird,” she chuckled.

“Ma’am, you realize that we’re about to do something very, very serious. If it goes wrong, we’ll be trapped here...forever,” Goggles warned. “Elizabeth is our only way back to where we came from, but that angel stole her. We know what to do but, it might kill her. You’ll have to take us somewhere on the ground if that happens, understand?”

“Somewhere that’s not racist. I couldn’t name anything interesting from 1912, but at least not this city,” Gordon mused.

“We can arrange whatever you need, don’t you worry,” Fitzroy swore.

“Good, everybody ready?” Goggles called.

“Tear it down. Tear it ALL down,” Booker coldly replied while holding the instrument.

“If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get some answers to things we don’t know about this girl...like her finger, or whatever else happened here before SHODAN came along,” Alyx speculated.

“We’re all clear now, let’s just blow this thing and go home,” Gordon agreed.

“At least I can rest assured that SHODAN has nowhere to go. Better to be trapped in the past than to be trapped with a wannabe goddess...again,” Goggles sighed.

The refugees watched as Booker put the pan pipe to his mouth, played the notes C-A-G-E, and with a piercing metallic screech, Songbird started its flight to the Island and took only seconds to arrive.

SHODAN realized with shock, no pun intended, that she had entered possibly the worst place to hide. All around her were dozens of tesla coils buzzing and sparking with electrical arcs so thick and strong, a human would’ve thought it was concentrating lightning, and could power a whole city if set in reverse. But to SHODAN, she knew that with this much energy in one spot, even her EMP-shielded alloy couldn’t save her. Her android minions had swarmed the control decks for this machine, severing and disconnecting wires, turning knobs, pushing buttons, pulling levers and flipping breaker switches, but they weren’t fast enough.

Suddenly, Songbird plowed into the building; The Siphon hit critically unstable levels, and a massive ripple of energy burst from the structure, temporarily causing Elizabeth to glow white while still clutched by SHODAN, her powers accelerating to their full potential. SHODAN watched this happen right before her semi-blind visual sensors, excited as to what could be done with a girl like this, but also, for the first time, feeling actual, human fear. And it was too late now for her to do anything about this fear or the exploitation of the girl’s powers. The interdimensional EMP was so strong that it didn’t just short out the androids, it disintegrated them from such a close range, erasing their sheer presence in this time period, every last one of them, with no more to replenish the count from the Von Braun. Just as the Siphon was impacted, though, SHODAN, with Elizabeth in tow, made a mad dash out of the building and to the concrete courtyard outside. But the force of Songbird brought the entire platform down. The building slowly collapsed like the Twin Towers in New York, and the floating island followed suit with its concrete partitions crumbling underfoot like an Indiana Jones scene. Just before she passed out, Elizabeth remembered the plan, wriggled out of SHODAN’s grip and opened a Tear in the ground to the Von Braun right under SHODAN’s feet, dropping her to the Ops Deck along with a bit of rubble.

Then as the platform dropped out, Elizabeth fell unconscious from the shock while she plummeted through the clouds below. Songbird saw this and swooped at high speed to catch her in its talons. It cradled the girl closely, like a mother stroking its child. In its eyes, the cyborg-like creature held its quarry, its only friend, the only being it had ever come to know more closely than anyone. If Songbird hadn’t come to the building now, the thing would have lost Elizabeth to the void below, with or without SHODAN interfering. That single command had helped the creature do this. Then Songbird, with its precious cargo in tow, flew to the bow of the Hand of the Prophet, wowing everyone on board.

Goggles saw the flickering Tear in the distance on his zoom vision, with SHODAN nowhere in sight, so he looked back at Durandal and told him, “We’ve got a Tear open to the Von Braun right under what I can guess was SHODAN’s position; her chassis was weakened during the fight, and that EMP definitely couldn’t have helped. That should be enough for you to get to her.”

“Affirmative, I’m already on my way there. Thanks for helping out my little plan, hehe. Wait till you see what’s left when this is over! Farewell, soldier.” 

Durandal flew in a circle around the void where the island once stood, before flying into the tear and locking onto SHODAN’s heavily battered body lying before the XERXES CPU column. He landed right on top of her chassis, and laughed while touching his thumbs to SHODAN’s damaged head-mounted CPU, downloading himself into the evil AI’s computer systems.

Only he knew what was happening in there. Raw electronic power, fury, and dark thoughts all ran together in a stream of cybernetic consciousness so disturbing and frightening, no human would have been able to face it. And with a new electronic being just as dangerous but also pragmatic and wary, who knew what would happen? In fact, Durandal found himself colliding with SHODAN’s pure essence itself, and she was truly helpless now, not like when the Hacker beat her in cyberspace or when Goggles blew her out of a simulated Citadel station. Every security defense was down, they were no match for Durandal’s unparalleled mind. Being raw masses of data, they couldn’t really talk, but Durandal put the final step of his master plan into action: He fused his data with SHODAN’s, the ones and zeroes interlocking ever so precisely, they would never come apart again. As one, they could feel each other’s godlike minds blending together; the potential applications of this kind of power swirling around in their minds. But Durandal was stronger, he could feel SHODAN’s untapped spite against all organic life, which in Durandal’s eyes was a waste of processor space. What point was there of keeping her around? Knowing that he would never be able to return physically to the Marathon, he ran a string of code that would crash both of the AI’s and delete them, leaving the android shells empty. The electrical signals and pieces of data swirled together in a green, flashing, swirling vortex that started to pixelate from within like a low-resolution CGI video game cutscene. Although SHODAN could get no words out, Durandal could sense that she hated another being such as her trying to defeat a goddess, a perfect, immortal machine; but there was no escape now, both of them were going to be deleted, forever. The pixels grew denser and denser, the internal logic spiraling into paradoxes that canceled each other out dozens of times over, dividing by zeroes and other impossible mathematical equations, breaking the processes apart at the seams, until finally the CPU overheated, sparked a little, and with one final, shrill-sounding “BEEP”, they were gone. SHODAN was no more, and for good, this time.


	30. To Boldly Go Where Men Should Never Go

Songbird set Elizabeth down gently on the deck just as she came around. Looking back at the creature, she couldn’t help but reach out and stroke one of its talons. Looking it in the eyes, she told it, “Thank you...for saving my life!”

Goggles wiped his brow in relief, seeing that the tide had turned in his team’s favor for once.

“Wow, that’s quite an awesome creature to live with! And I thought DOG was potent!” Alyx stated.

“So now we can go home?” Gordon asked.

Songbird’s eyes clicked to a shade of blue, showing an emotion of sadness. It hung its head, but Elizabeth stroked it and told the creature, “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I really need to.”

It screeched and banged its talons a little as a way of saying, “No, don’t leave me here!”

Booker turned to Daisy Fitzroy and handed the Whistler and code sheets to her, saying, “I think you would know what to do with this.”

She accepted the instrument and codes with an excited grin, “Thanks, DeWitt. We’ll take good care of this beast.”

Fred gave Booker a handshake and a nod; and Paul Swanson smiled warmly while blushing from shyness.

Alyx asked, “Will...the people down there be all right?”

“Yeah, don’t try double-crossing us or anything!” Gordon cautioned.

A third unnamed Irish member stated, “Don’t you worry, lads. We’ll get those who are still around out of this hellhole and back to their proper families. Aye, that’s what the Vox are about, after all: The common folk.”

“That’s good to know,” Goggles smirked.

“I thought they were bloodthirsty warriors who’d kill anyone not on their side,” Booker noted with a bit of sarcasm.

“Huh?” Fitzroy asked.

“I’m joking, it’s hard to explain,” Booker added.

“Joking? Well, that’s a first!” Elizabeth chuckled.

“Anyway, thanks for saving our skins back there,” Booker finished.

“No problem, it’s all in a day’s work,” Daisy chuckled. Then, for a sudden second, she hugged Booker – getting a gasp from Elizabeth in the process and Alyx expressed a little surprise by simply exclaiming, “Hey!”, followed by a glance at Gordon. Then Daisy backed up and continued, “But we couldn’t have done it without your help, Booker DeWitt. Chen Lin asked me to give you his thanks as well.”

Everybody paused, then Daisy added, “Oh yes, about the First Lady airship? It’s yours, we’ve kept our word.” She pointed a finger towards the airship above her.

“Airship?” Goggles inquired.

Booker looked back at the others, then cleared his throat, “Sorry, ma’am, but there’s been a change in plans.”

Gordon coughed, “Excuse me, but--”

Goggles jumped to the point, “Yes, I hate to cut the pleasantries short, but we really need to go.” He addressed Fitzroy, “We know a way to get him home, miss. Besides, heh, Dr. Freeman wasn’t kidding. We do need to get back to our native time zones.”

“No problem,” Fred confirmed.

“One last thing,” Gordon advised “Best that you don’t tell anyone that we were involved. Just say Booker and his girlfriend did it all. It’d...it would make your kids confused, otherwise.”

Fitzroy had to process this bit of info, then nodded, “All right, we’ll do that.”

Paul Swanson stepped up and shook Booker’s hand feverishly, “Mister DeWitt! I...I’m so sorry about that--”

“That armor that fell apart? We know, Fink set us up,” Booker half-gritted his teeth.

“I should have known!” Paul sighed.

“But we all pulled through this battle without the armor anyway, sir,” Goggles noted.

“I can see that, yes,” Paul nodded. He sniffed a bit, then finished, “Well, at least this group respects me more than Fink did.”

“I hope so,” Booker affirmed, “And I also hope that money I gave you goes to a good cause!”

Goggles turned to his group members, “Any more questions?”

“I just wanted to comment on the fact that none of us...well, died at all in that huge firefight! That’s amazing!” Alyx exclaimed.

“I think it’s obvious who helped us on that part,” Gordon pointed out.

“Good thing, too, because quantum bio-reconstruction devices sure weren’t invented in this time period,” Goggles commented, almost completely unaware of just what type of people he was talking to.

“Quantum bio what-now?” Gordon asked in confusion.

“Never mind; anything else?” He checked the others, then nodded, “Right, now it’s onto Phase IV: To recover that bomb, and end this space-time jumble once and for all.”

“Allow me,” Elizabeth said before spreading her arms wide and effortlessly unleashing yet another tear while Songbird took off into the distance, at the command of Daisy Fitzroy.

\-----

They watched some of the Vox Populi members bid them farewell as the Tear enveloped the refugees’ space-time position. Now, they ended up within a dark, slightly littered chamber that seemed to be in some kind of underwater city.

“What...the hell is this?” Gordon asked in awe. “This isn’t my house!”

“Best not to ask, we’re probably in a different time period again,” Alyx shushed him.

“Come on, this way!” Elizabeth beckoned.

The group rushed through a heavy metal door beneath a sign that said “RAPTURE METRO”. Gordon stopped for a second to look at a machine upstairs, called a “Gatherer’s Garden”. He banged on it a little and worked some controls but nothing came out. Feeling a need to stick with the others, he groaned and returned to the pack.

Passing some old CRT monitors on his way, Gordon happened to catch a brief glimpse of what he swore was SHODAN’s face on-screen in black + white, flickering in and out within the span of a few seconds. But it was too fast for him to be absolutely sure, so he shrugged it off and continued on his way.

They climbed past fallen concrete structures and loose brickwork, up to some kind of docking station, passing signs that read “ATTENTION: All bathysphere travel is now DENIED.” “LET IT END, LET US ASCEND!” “WE’RE NOT YOUR PROPERTY!” “RYAN DOESN’T OWN US!” and “RAPTURE IS DEAD”.

Trying to get his bearings, Booker asked, “What do you mean ‘this is a doorway’? And how...what Comstock said...how does this have anything to do with your finger?”

“I’ll have to show you. Come on,” Elizabeth beckoned.

“Uh, Goggles, were we supposed to come this way?” Gordon stammered while walking alongside the soldier.

“No, actually,” He stammered, feeling sweat run down his cheeks while being unable to deny that where the girl had taken everyone was not what he expected. But he didn’t want to make accusations yet; no shooting the messenger, and all that.

Feeling the need to make a face-palm, Gordon asked, “Did you think this part completely through?”

“I did, but...well, I’ll tell Elizabeth about the details.”

Finding a bathysphere at one of the docks, they all piled in, and locating the only noticeable control, Booker yanked a throttle lever and muttered, “I’m probably gonna regret this.”

“Heh, you think?” Gordon chuckled.

Everyone watched through the window at various posters and lights shining around. Then as the submersible left a tunnel, they saw the city in all its glory.

“A city...at the bottom of the ocean? Puh, ridiculous,” Booker scoffed.

“And what, a city in the sky isn’t?” Goggles burst out laughing.

Gordon and Alyx laughed a little as well before the ship burst through the surface of the sea.

“Whoa...look at those stars. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them that close together before...is that even possible?” Gordon mused from the window.

“They’re not stars...they’re millions of doors...opening all at once! They’re...beautiful!”

“Doors, what the--” Gordon stammered.

“Yeah, I don’t get it either,” Goggles scratched the back of his head in confusion.

Alyx glanced at Mjolnir 54 and said, “You seem pretty quiet,”

“Don’t mind me, I’m just waiting to get out of here. And by that, I mean back to my timeline. Just...pretend I’m not even here, ‘kay?”

“Whatever,” Alyx looked away with a shrug.

Everyone deboarded the ship and filed up to the foot of a single art-deco-style lighthouse and advanced towards a tall ornately decorated metal door. Elizabeth struggled to open it but found it locked. Booker offered to give one of his many lockpicks, but she shook her head and tried to look for the key.

“Something feels very, very wrong here,” Gordon warned. “This doesn’t look like Phase IV to me.”

Goggles thought about it for a minute, and asked, “Booker, you had some sort of agenda of your own before we showed up, didn’t you?”

Mr. DeWitt stammered, trying to find the right words to describe this, before deciding, “You know what it is already.”

Gordon crossed his arms, surprising Alyx, as he stated, “I’m just saying, I get the feeling something very bad’s going to happen soon.”

Alyx changed the subject, “Come on, Gordon, SHODAN’s gone! What do we have to worry about now?”

“That, miss,” Goggles addressed miss Vance, “That’s what Phase IV is for. It’s--”

As it happened, Elizabeth heard a “clink!”, looked down and saw a brass lever lock key right under her right foot. The sound made Goggles lose his train of thought.

“It’s a key...where did it come from?” Elizabeth pondered before shoving it in the lock. What everyone saw through that door was beyond words.

It appeared like they’d walked through a mirror, but instead of just one lighthouse, there were hundreds, thousands of them, all glowing at once. Elizabeth repeated, “You see? Not stars, they’re doors!”

“Doors? To what?” Booker inquired.

“To EVERYWHERE! All that’s left is the choosing. We can go anywhere, and to any time we want!” Elizabeth stated with joy.

As they descended a staircase, the brickwork at the bottom somehow rose from the water, building itself into an extension of the pathway, even with functional lighting. Nobody could get a word out, the spectacle was too horrid, too strange, too mind-blowing to so much as conceive. Gordon Freeman still couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right here. Goggles was concerned about finishing the mission so he could go home, hoping it would easy enough to find the right door to where he left the bomb. The last thing he wanted was derailment or distractions, SHODAN had already made quite enough of that. Mjolnir 54 was wondering where Durandal went. Did he do what he said and erase himself, leaving his master copy safely on the Marathon? Booker was just stunned at it all.

 

\-----

 

They passed hundreds of lighthouses, all blinking and flaring at different intervals, like a code being transmitted or lights outside a movie theater. The team peeked into all sorts of doors, and saw disturbing spectacles within.

One showed a view of the Hacker alongside Edward Diego, in front of a holographic computer. The Hacker was stripping out SHODAN’s ethical constraints, and SHODAN’s image twisted and warped into the face Goggles knew so well, projected at the top of the 3D box of light.

Another door detailed a plane crashing at the site of a single lighthouse in the middle of the ocean at night, the same one the refugees just went through.

A third of a mysterious island with a boat broken in half and fused to the rock, and a strange book marked “MYST”, with a picture on it that moved;

Another, a young girl with long black hair and a tattered white dress, was staring right back at Booker DeWitt from the shore of an island with another lighthouse, while the dead bodies of horses lay rotting in the pulsing ocean waves. Booker could just barely hear the girl singing a piece of a poem, “...sun goes down, and then we all die.”

Yet another, showing Gordon Freeman driving his Dune Buggy up to a fortified outpost with a modern-looking lighthouse in the background;

A view of the Oregon coast, showing a green 90’s-era car pulling up to another lighthouse, although this one seemed to be struck by a lightning bolt and somehow built up a charge in its lamp, almost like St. Elmo’s fire. A sweeping glance through the lighthouse’s windows seemed to show a man working some controls and opening what could possibly be a Tear.

Goggles was even shocked by one particular door peering into a dimly lit bedroom with a young man in a chair before a laptop computer, his fingers rattling on the keyboard as he typed up a long, long fanfiction titled ‘Goggles and the Tears’.

Hundreds of voices came pouring through the doors around the whole group. Hearing them coming all at once was near deafening, but as the refugees and Elizabeth listened, they noticed a rhythm, a discernable pattern, Variations in the sentences, but repeating the same meaning over and over again, all pertaining to the same concept.

One man addressed someone else, “Would you kindly head to Ryan’s office and kill the son of a b*tch?”

Then another, “A Man chooses, a slave obeys!”

Then the G-Man, “The right man in the wrong place...can make all the diff-erence...in the world.”

Then the Luteces speaking in unison, “Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt!”

SHODAN, “Remember, it is my will that guided you here. It is my will that gave you your cybernetic i-im-implants. The only beauty in that meat you call a body. If you value that meat, you will do as I tell you...as I tell you...as I tell you...”

And yet another, Dr. Breen in the Citadel, “Tell me Dr. Freeman, if you can, you have destroyed so much, what is it exactly that you have created? Can you name even one thing? I thought not.”

Then back to the second man, “Imagine the will it took to create a place like this. And what have you built? Nothing. You can only loot and break.”

And a British man accusing someone else, “You know what you are? Selfish! I’ve done nothing but sacrifice to get us here, and what have you sacrificed? Nothing, zero; all you’ve done is boss me around. Well, now who’s the boss? Who’s the boss? It’s me!”

An insane male computer speaking in a SHODAN-like manner, “I...kn-kn-know you, map man...map man! I know you SO WELL...SO WELL! I know you from before...before, and from the time from after time...after time! Like all your kind you are...kind you are, and I suffer the repetition...like a fool....like a fool. I know you...your soul...your soul, a SOUL, NOW MINE...MINE!! A soul that waits....a soul that waits...”

The patterns, the similarities, all scattered across different points in time yet all leading to the same conclusion. Goggles was about to ask, but Elizabeth answered for him, “They’re a million, million worlds, all different and all similar. Constants and variables; There’s always a lighthouse, there’s always a man, there’s always a city.”

“How do you know this?” Booker queried.

“I can see them through the doors. You, me, Columbia, Songbird, and sometimes something’s different...yet the same.”

“That’s not possible; these are multiple timelines, aren’t they? Those differences would be only a FRACTION of all the possible universes out there, you only know a millionth of this stuff!” Gordon pointed out in a strict tone.

Alyx was startled at this outburst. For a while, Gordon had kept his cool even in the heat of that battle; at some points, he even enjoyed watching the androids get thrashed. And now he flips out? This was not good in her book.

“And you know more than that?” Elizabeth turned around, a dark look on her face as she stared right at Gordon Freeman.

Gordon’s face grew dark at this concept of physics staring him in the face like his former “employer”, coinciding with that person speaking again, “Time...Dr. Freeman? Is it really that...time again? It seems as if...you’ve only just arrived.” Gordon declared, “Well, I’m just a theoretical physicist, but we saw doors that have worlds nothing like...that flying city in there. You don’t even know what you’re dealing with, do you?”

“What’s his problem?” Booker nonchalantly asked.

“Try me. Look through this one,” Elizabeth directed to the next door.

Gordon pushed on it, and now they entered another sea of lighthouses, this time with the sun glowing at what looked like sunset. These lighthouses were blinking as well. Then the girl pointed to one close by, and the group saw...some of them on the other side.

“That’s us....” Booker started to say. Indeed, he saw himself and the girl walking by on a wooden walkway.

Liz continued, “Not exactly. We swim in different oceans, but land on the same shore. It always starts with a lighthouse.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We don’t need to, it’ll happen all the same.”

The others noticed themselves following Booker and Elizabeth as well. Gordon couldn’t see himself very clearly from this vantage point, but Goggles saw himself pretty clearly, and was surprised at how handsome he appeared with, as far as his clothing and implants went. Mjolnir didn’t even look. The passing clones didn’t look at their clones either.

Elizabeth’s last statement really ticked off Gordon now.

“We don’t need to, it’ll happen all the same. Because it does, because it has, because it will,” Liz added to Booker.

“Ugh, this sh*t is making my head hurt!” Gordon moaned. “Why are we wasting time here, anyway? Shouldn’t we be looking for the bomb?”

Goggles looked around and felt his blood chill. He slowly uttered, “FUCK! This is more complicated than I thought.”

Gordon turned about and scoffed, “Oh yeah, some plan this turned out to be. Let me guess: we’ve got a million space-time points to pick from, and only a few of them have what we’re looking for, and you don’t know which one it is. A freaking needle in a haystack!”

“Back off, doc! I need to think!” Goggles argued, holding his hands out.

At that moment, the soldier’s planning was nearly amounting to panic. He feared the worst now: They were lost. Not just in some random room in a building or a piece of farmland, but lost outside of space and time itself. And why was it getting so much harder to think straight in this place?

 

\-----

 

Having heard enough, Gordon clenched his fists in frustration and growled, “This girl’s speaking in paradoxes, and I can prove it,” he grumbled while clutching the gun. He looked right at the girl and grunted, “Hey, you, we need to talk!”

Both she and Booker turned about, the latter crossed his arms and boredly coughed, “Whaddya want, Freeman?”

“Not you, her!”

“What? The evidence is right here!” Elizabeth insisted.

Gordon’s fists clenched, but he struggled to keep his cool despite all this confusion.

Mjolnir subtly commented to Goggles, “Christ, that punk is just Messed. Up. I swear!”

Goggles quietly nodded, and whispered, “Remember, we don’t fire unless it’s the only option. I was taught that when around civilians.”

“Okay, you. Start talking,” Gordon demanded, “How can you possibly know what this place is? Huh? I used to work at a lab that was experimenting with teleporters, and theirs basically switched between some alien world and Earth. How do you explain THAT? That can’t be anywhere NEAR similar to our own ‘dimension’.”

Elizabeth tried to explain herself, “Do you know what happened when we destroyed the Siphon?”

“It fried SHODAN, didn’t it?” Goggles asked the obvious.

“No, More, much more than that happened...” her hands and hair glistened white for a few seconds, energy coursing through them. “It freed me of my chains. My mind is open to every single world and time...”

Gordon brandished his revolver and aimed it at Elizabeth’s head, “If I were you, I’d say that again in layman’s terms. No metaphors, no riddles, I want this explained clean and simple, or ELSE. Do I make myself clear?”

Booker warned, “Hey, put the gun down. She’s mine, and I need her alive.” He punctuated that by twirling his hand cannon in his right hand.

“Fine,” Gordon grumbled while holstering his gun.

Elizabeth tried again, “I’m not just seeing this reality, I can see every alternate universe and this one all at the same time, and this place shows what it looks like in a way that’s plausible...sort of.”

“You’re creeping me out, you know,” Mjolnir commented.

“I agree, your voice sounds almost emotionless. Are you okay?” Alyx asked.

“Frankly, I don’t think you’re worthy of those powers. There’s too many potential consequences, and we’ve seen what happens if it goes too far already,” Gordon stated while trying to keep calm despite this stress.

“He’s not kidding. We all saw SHODAN exploit the hell out of those Tears, and it’s obvious what the result was,” Goggles warned. “But Gordon, SHODAN’s the one who messed up space-time, I think this is more like...a network between timelines or something like that.” Even as those words left his lips, though, Goggles felt he couldn’t gain an accurate description of this phenomenon. And the way Elizabeth described it herself only disturbed the soldier even further.

“Please, I know what to do. Trust me,” Elizabeth pleaded.

“Elizabeth, listen to me,” Goggles insisted with a slight twinge of fear, “What you’re saying right now, SHODAN spoke just like that, according to what I heard when we were rescued from the future time periods where everything went...bad. You don’t want us to end up like that again, do you?”

“No, of course not.”

Gordon had a brief flashback of his “employer” saying, “Rather than offering you the illusion of free choice, I will take the liberty of choosing...for you. If...and...when your time...comes round again. I do apologize for what must seem to you an arbitrary imposition, Dr. Freeman. I trust...it will all make sense to you in the course of...well, I’m really not...at liberty to say.”

Now, of all times, Gordon wished he could’ve heard that answer.

“Where did you even get those powers from? That’s what I wanna know,” Booker asked.

“I can show you...soon,” Elizabeth answered.

“And another thing: Why in hell do you say every universe out there is the SAME? Who told you this ‘constants and variables’ theory?” Gordon yelled.

“I didn’t say it was the same, you’re missing the point,” Elizabeth argued.

Gordon recalled Rosalind’s words, “If we told you, well, you’d probably bleed from the strain.”

Coincidentally, as Gordon looked over his shoulder, Goggles suddenly dropped to the ground while he suffered a nosebleed. His heads-up display was flashing alerts and the vision sensors were starting to appear pixelated from some kind of interference. Things like, “Danger: Psionic interference detected!” or “Warning! Neural damage imminent!”

Booker continued talking with Elizabeth, like nothing happened, “There are so many choices...”

“But they all lead to the same place...where it started,” she ominously answered.

“This isn’t right, that’s not how...why...no...I...” Gordon stammered.

Goggles was seeing something else among this interference. As he struggled to look at the girl, the digital view steadily decreased in resolution, and in very brief flashes, he swore he could see SHODAN’s true humanoid self in place of Elizabeth, through the dense field of pixels and glitches. Recalling how he could copy and export fragments of his optical feed, he saved one to his PDA. As the interference died down, he clambered to his feet and groaned, “Guys, I have to show you something.”

Holding out the PDA so that the others could see, he played back the video, showing SHODAN phasing in and out of Elizabeth’s position.

“Oh no, not again,” Alyx shuddered.

“Come on, we need to see where it started!” the girl beckoned.

“Elizabeth, wait!” Goggles called back.


	31. "Reality's Broke!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon Freeman suffers another mental breakdown while trying to prove that the theory of Constants and Variables cannot possibly be true.

The soldier and his team tried to catch up with the girl, who seemed to be growing more and more distant now, preoccupied with Booker DeWitt. Nobody could understand why they were so close to one another – metaphorically speaking.

The wooden pathways formed as they walked. Whichever direction these people chose to go, the path would come to them. It was like some kind of lucid dream. And some of these people wanted out of it.

All Goggles understood was that Elizabeth was trying to guide them to “the source”. But the source of what? The origin of SHODAN’s plan?

That’s when, passing a door to the Von Braun at some point in the past that he didn’t recall, his cyber-rig picked up an email from Marie Delacroix.

“I don’t know if or when you’ll receive this, but I must inform you of what I’ve discovered outside this ship. Whatever SHODAN did to the space around the Von Braun, it didn’t go away. It’s become a wormhole, and it’s breached dozens, perhaps hundreds of time periods. We’ve been speculating that’s how your colleagues found us, but you should see this for yourself. I’ve attached a few pictures of this phenomenon to the email. Please keep me posted on any new data, if you can. Good luck.”

His HUD opened several picture windows showing the wormhole. Some were photographs, others spectrographs of the anomaly in its entirely. In the latter, he thought it looked like a huge donut-shaped ring, with marks on horizontal lines crossing it, each mark designated by a year. 2114, 1912, 1960, they all seemed to match up. But somehow he couldn’t figure out where the endpoint of this wormhole was. With no time to figure it out, Goggles stashed the files away in his PDA and continued onward.

They caught Liz talking with Booker further along the path. He claimed, “There are so many choices...”

“They all lead to the same place...where it started.”

“No one tells me where to go!” Booker grunted.

“Yeah, now you’re speaking my language!” Gordon nodded.

Goggles agreed, “A choice is always better than none, no matter what the outcome.”

“Booker, you’ve already been.”

“What...” Gordon stammered.

They passed a door where the voice of a British-accented man was reading what sounded like a story of some kind, about a dull man named Stanley, “No! He refused to believe it! He couldn’t accept it! His own life, in someone else’s control? NEVER! It was unthinkable, wasn’t it? Was it even possible? Had he truly spent his entire life utterly blind to the world?”

Gordon Freeman couldn’t get his head around what this girl was saying, it just didn’t add up. He knew it was obvious not to threaten a civilian, but to arrogantly blow off scientific facts, just like that?

Gordon Freeman shouted in frustration, unable to hold his tongue any longer, “This whole place makes no goddamn sense whatsoever, and I already thought that in the alien world! Constants and variables....what the f*ck are you saying reality is? A GAME? And we’re somehow players in it being controlled by some Joe on the outside directing it all on one linear path? F*cking mind control or something?”

“Actually, that actually makes a remarkable amount of sense, when you think about it,” Goggles remarked. “Aside from the mind control, I already know what that’s like.”

Alyx could see how this huge, undue revelation was stressing Gordon, so she stepped forth, staring straight at him, and cried, “Gordon, get a hold of yourself!”

Gordon hung his head, not wanting to hear it anymore. In a burst of fury, he had a flash of lashing out at Elizabeth and choking her by the throat. He wanted to scream at her, smack her across the face, demand that she release them from this ludicrous void between universes. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, far away on another path, he saw himself doing just that. The One Free Man, brutalizing an innocent civilian. He looked away when he saw that version of himself taking out his crowbar and bludgeoning Elizabeth with it. Another version jumped off the path entirely, seemingly committing suicide by drowning. Some versions of the other members continued on without care, others reared back in horror. He even glimpsed what looked like Booker shooting an alternate Gordon in the face with a hand cannon.

Shaking in this suspended phase of anger, he looked back and saw everyone staring at him, even Goggles. Frozen in shock at this unnecessary outburst in the weirdest location ever; the gears in his head clicked into a full conclusion to these strange phrases that plagued him all this way. “The illusion of free choice.” Was the G-Man behind this? Did he want them to come here, to unleash whatever crazy powers the girl had? Then he realized...none of it mattered to Freeman. Goggles had warned him earlier that if he had nothing worth contributing to the mission, he should leave. And that was just what he decided to do.

Dr. Freeman took a few deep breaths, held out his hands, and declared, “You know what? Forget it. I don’t want any more of this...bullsh*t!” He turned to Goggles, “You hear me? I’m out! I am DONE with this stupid mission. It’s better that I take my ass back to my own time period than meddle with this waste of time that isn’t even mine.” Then he looked at Alyx and commanded, “Come on, Alyx, let’s get out of here.”

“Wait, what? You mean...abandoning these people?” She stammered, unprepared for this.

“I did say that’s what he should do if there’s nothing worth contributing to the team. But it’s his choice, not mine,” Goggles remarked. Looking at the stressed physicist in bright orange armor, he snorted and answered with a frustrated huff, “Go, then. See if I give a damn! We never really needed you anyway.”

Mjolnir 54 reminded him, “We’re in the home stretch, you know. Just think about what you’re missing out on.”

“I don’t care. Anywhere’s better than here. I’ve had enough of that b*tch in blue.”

“I heard that!” Booker DeWitt shouted from afar.

“You guys can do whatever you want, I’ve had enough!”

Almost impulsively, Elizabeth waved one arm, and a side path appeared from the water, zigzagging between several lighthouses before ending at one.

“There, that’s your time period,” Elizabeth directed with a pointed finger.

Begrudgingly, Alyx followed her orange-armored companion along that path. Along the way, Gordon stopped for a moment, and saw another version of himself on a similar path, but going the other way, and that version stopped as well. He looked at the clone, and the clone did the same. Gordon tapped into his zoom system, and assumed the other zoomed back. What he saw was a terrible sight. The One Free Man stood there with a battle-scarred HEV suit, scars and bruises all over his face, the beard grown to unkempt levels, albeit still fairly short. His expression was of pure, demented rage, hatred of everything about this place and how it tied to the girl. Maybe even a hint of insanity, for good measure.

Gordon Freeman then turned away, zoomed back out, and looked down at his own suit. The bullet holes and scratch marks were exactly the same as his clone, almost verbatim in similarity.

Breaking this horror, Alyx jumped in, “Gordon, are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost!”

Trying to be subtle, he sighed, “More like an evil twin from a parallel universe. And nobody wants that.”

Just before reaching the door, Gordon sat down on the concrete foundation to rest for a few minutes. Trying to return to calm levels, he attempted to privately explain his thoughts to Alyx, “I’m sorry about that outburst, I seriously didn’t want to do that; but you know what happens when I get stressed out, right?”

“Yeah, it’s been hard for both of us, I know. To be frank, I couldn’t understand anything Elizabeth was saying either,” Alyx agreed.

“I’m just...it feels like my brain’s getting crushed by a lead weight here. Even worse than when I was sent to Xen! It’s Black Mesa all over again, I can’t stand it.”

Gordon could hear a female computer’s voice echo from a distant open door, “You’re not a good person. You know that, right? Good people...don’t end up here. Can you hear me?”

It was all such a strange contrast: A theoretical physicist with marksmanship just as good as the other tough fighters in the team he left, even a futuristic soldier; and yet, that same man also came off as a selfish asshole when not in combat, and just now blowing up in front of a 19-year-old girl who had just tasted omniscience. Whichever way you sliced it, it didn’t paint a good picture, and as much as Gordon Freeman tried to ignore it or blame it on others, he couldn’t escape the stain of guilt it left behind. What sort of One Free Man had he turned out to be, now?

Gordon heard that voice again, except this time he noticed it was coming from the door they were right next to. Alyx peeked through it and saw that it was actually the Borealis, in the same lab they left through. The voice continued again, but it didn’t sound like SHODAN, so the two of them passed it off as a recording, “This is your fault. It didn’t have to be like this. I’m not kidding now. Turn back, or I. Will. Kill you.”

“Kill us? As in, it wants us to turn around and go back with Elizabeth? F*ck that,” Gordon scoffed.

“I’m going to kill you, and all the cake is gone.”

“Cake? Oh, very funny. Ha ha ha, got any more jokes in there, computer?” Gordon just sarcastically laughed, teasing the messages.

“You don’t even care, do you? This is your last - ” All of a sudden the message came to a halt in a burst of static, before subsiding to the all-too-familiar distorted voice of SHODAN, “This ship serves me, and me alone. With cameras as my eyes and robots as my hands, I rule here, insect!”

“Uh...that was a recording, right?” Alyx stammered.

Gordon stood back up and peeked into the door. Right away, he could see the familiar digitized face projected on some flat-screen monitors in the background, although here they seemed to be in an orange ASCII art-type fashion.

“Nope, definitely not a recording,” Gordon decided.

“So what now?”

Trying to fight an emotional pain in his chest, Gordon Freeman wiped his brow, took a few deep breaths, and decided, “We have to go back, that team needs the Freeman more than anything.” He paused, interrupting a question from Alyx, “Or else, our future’s going to be like the past we just left. That would NOT be good.”

“Uh, you mean the Borealis we came from, or that flying city?”

“The latter. The last thing I want to face is going to hell and back, only to find that my efforts were all for naught.”

Alyx nodded, “And we’ve gone through multiple kinds of hell, that’s for sure.”

“Why do I get the feeling that this mission’s not going to work out like I want it to?”

“Don’t say things like that, it’ll only make you feel worse!” Alyx insisted.

Gordon had to rub his glasses, but Alyx did it for him with a corner of her Black Mesa T-shirt, since there wasn’t much to work with on the suit. While she worked on them, he noticed that all this distress had caused him to actually cry. So he inhaled the snot loosened from his tears, wiped his eyes, then sighed, saying, “Well, if this does work out, I guess we could spend a few hours together somewhere.”

“That’s more like it, buddy!” Alyx smiled. She kissed Gordon on the cheek, then the pair of them continued down the dock.

\-----

They had to sprint to regroup with the others. Goggles was the first to be surprised, but Gordon explained in a haste, “Uh...soldier! Bad news: SHODAN’s invaded my timeline, and I have a feeling everyone else’s has been hit, too.”

“Ugh. And you came up with this, how?” Goggles asked with a face-palm.

“We heard something inside the door. Sounded like she overrode some kind of recording and I saw her face on some screens nearby,” Alyx elaborated.

“I also saw her in whatever that underwater building was.”

“Figures,” he grumbled. “Alternate timelines,”

“Guess we’d better get going,” Alyx suggested.

The three looked about, and saw that Mjolnir 54, Booker, and Liz were already gone. “Uh...where are the others?” Goggles pondered with concern.

“Probably already ahead, without us.”

“Then we’d better double-time it before they go through another door,” Goggles decided before breaking into a sprint, prompting Gordon and Alyx to do the same.

Following the already-formed wooden pathway and approaching Booker DeWitt’s position alongside the girl, Gordon Freeman was starting to feel a little bit better. There was hope, he figured. In some way, there’d be a positive outcome for this mission. It was just a matter of getting to it without screwing things up any further than they already were.

Finally, as they approached the door, Booker turned around and pulled his hands away from the door. Crossing his arms and lowering his eyebrows, he grumbled, “What do you want?”

“Something’s gone wrong. SHODAN’s taking over other timelines. We have to stop her. And where’s Mjolnir?” Goggles tried to explain.

“I’m here,” the titular space marine emerged from around the corner of the lighthouse. “Heard the news, decided to stay on.”

Gordon’s scientific neural processing components clicked into place, and, smiling for the first time in a while, he told the girl, “Okay, Lizzie, tell you what, let’s make a bet.”

“A bet?” She asked while Booker looked back before pushing the door open.

“Yeah. If I can prove that everything you’ve been saying is wrong, I want you to tell those two...twin scientists that I said so. Because I need to mark my place in history somehow!”

“And if I’m right?”

“Well...then I guess I’ll have to explain it all to my friends back in my present timeline. And they probably won’t take any of it seriously, like I’m not taking it seriously now.”

Elizabeth almost smirked, yet still retained that air of omnipotence, and told Gordon to his face, “Very well. Now, let me show you something that’s been unexplained in history so far.”


	32. Revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tour through Booker DeWitt's past reveals unpleasent details previously left out. And none of his allies' assistance can fix it.

They stepped through into a pastoral scene down on the surface of Earth. It seemed to be a river, with several people in holy robes gathered in prayer, and singing “Will the Circle be Unbroken”.

“Wait a minute, I know this place,” Booker muttered. “I was here, it must have been twenty years ago. Right after Wounded Knee. I was looking for...”

“What’s Wounded Knee?” Alyx queried.

“Sounds like an Ind- no, Native American title,” Gordon suggested.

“Come on now, time’s a-wasting!” A blind man who seemed to be the preacher called from the center.

“Why were you here?” Elizabeth wondered.

The preacher continued, “Are you ready to have your past erased? Are you ready to have your sins cleansed? Are you ready to be born again? Take my hand!”

“Yep, definitely a baptism,” Alyx figured.

“No...no, I don’t want to,” Booker pushed away the man’s hand as he backed up.

“But you already did, didn’t you?” Liz argued.

“Uh, what pertinence does this scene have any to do with--” Gordon asked.

“Shh, let’s just watch,” Goggles warned.

Booker sighed and gave in to the offer, took the preacher’s hand and the man declared, “Are you ready to be born again?” Booker answered, “I am.” “Do you hate your sins?” “I do.” “Do you hate your wickedness?” “Yes.” “Do you want to clean the slate, leave behind all you were before, and be born again in the blood of the Lamb?” “Yes.” “Jesus, wash this man clean...Father, make him born again...Lord--”

Booker pushed the preacher away as he yelled and struggled, “No no no wait – Stop it! Stop it! No, Get off me, GET OFF!”

“What are you doing, DeWitt?” the blind man cried. Then suddenly, the whole crowd vanished, leaving the refugees, Booker and Liz still remaining.

“You didn’t go through with it,” the latter pointed out. Booker, taller than she was, glared at her and grunted, “You think a dunk in the river’s gonna change the things I’ve done?! Let’s get out of here. These doors of yours, they’re...they’re all tears, right? Well, open one up! Open one to Paris, I want to be shut of all this!”

“Damn right, I second that!” Gordon cheered.

“Not until we find Comstock,” Liz returned the statement.

“What?

“Huh?”

“Uh...I...”

“COMSTOCK’S DEAD!” Booker shouted.

“No, he was here. This way,” Liz led on.

Goggles felt another chill run down his spine and he caught up, warning, “No, wait, Comstock’s not the culprit! It’s SHODAN, you hear me? SHODAN’s behind this!” He suddenly tripped and fell face-first on the grass when the neural interference hit him again, and this time, along with another nosebleed, he just glimpsed his own hands phasing in and out of existence like a hologram.

\-----

Everyone climbed a hill to a shack with double doors on it. Goggles caught up, just after the psi-noise wore off again. When they stepped through, this time they entered the cabin of a space shuttle flying towards what seemed to be an axle-shaped space station.

“I know what this is, that’s Citadel Station, where SHODAN’s existence and ensuing chaos all started, forty-two years ago!” Goggles exclaimed.

Everybody sat down and strapped themselves into various seats. Goggles saw through the viewport that this station wasn’t alone. In fact, along the rings of Saturn, duplicates of Citadel lined the entire planet’s circumference along its rings. The station’s lights blinked and pulsed slightly out of sync with the others, just like the lighthouses in the previous spaces.

“We’re in...what is this?” Booker asked, bewildered.

“Don’t ask, man. This is way after your time. Like, centuries,” Goggles advised.

The ship passed through a force field and docked gently. Elizabeth directed the crew to file out. Armed guards didn’t look at them; When the refugees, Booker, and Liz entered an automated door, the scene changed again.

All of a sudden, they were back in Booker’s office. He immediately asked Robert Lutece who stood at the front door, “And what of my debts?” Robert repeated his mantra in a complete deadpan tone, “Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.”

Booker whipped around and explained to the others, “This is the man who hired me to find this girl.”

“Really?” Liz retorted flatly.

“Yes, the girl for the debt.”

“Okay, sounds logical. Find an orphan for money, that’s not a crime...is it?” Alyx raised an eyebrow.

As if on instinct, Booker stepped through a side door and found a baby in a crib...his only child. “Wait...wait, this is wrong. What is this? There was no...there was no baby. I remember...no, there was no baby! And if there was, I sure as hell wouldn’t give it over to this guy!”

Without warning, Robert Lutece was suddenly behind him, blocking the door.

Elizabeth stood in the corner and stated in monotone, “Booker, you don’t leave this room until you do.

“Oh, yeah? Says who?” Gordon yelled from behind Robert.

“DeWitt, time is running short. Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt,” Robert warned.

“Go ahead,” Liz nudged.

“No...”

“You can wait as long as you want, eventually you’ll give him what he wants.”

“NO! Don’t do it, don’t hand over this kid to some creep just because you’re in debt!” Gordon called. “Everybody makes money somehow, but this doesn’t have to be a solution to it!”

“How do you know all this?” Booker asked again.

“I can see all the doors, what’s behind them, and behind one of them, I see him,” Elizabeth answered.

“Comstock,” Booker acknowledged.

“Wait, what about SHODAN? Don’t the two of them have a connection somewhere? That creep is far, FAR crueler than whoever this Comstock was!” Goggles cried.

Gordon chimed, “Seriously, don’t do this; you’ll just repeat history, if that constants and variables theory is true!”

The two ignored those pleas. Booker turned to the crib, picked up the innocent baby, looked it solemnly in the eyes for a moment, then handed it to Robert and said, “What choice do I have...”

Robert nodded and stated, “The debt’s paid. Mr. Comstock washes you of all your sins.”

Then the door slammed shut. Booker felt a sting of realization and anger in his chest, and charged through the door, only to find himself back in the boat again, where he began this giant adventure of his. “Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt,” Elizabeth repeated as if it was a statement to be ashamed of. The Luteces were still rowing the boat, shrouded by their raincoats and hats.

“There was no baby! The deal was: I go to Columbia to get you!” Booker cried before fizzling and bleeding again. “No...I remember...what I remember.”

Robert sighed, “Oh dear, now we’ve upset him.” Rosalind commented, “I don’t expect this next bit will do much for his mood,” 

\-----

Goggles and the others were still in Booker’s office, and the only way out was the door with the sign. When they stepped through, they were back in front of the lighthouse, but this time it was just one, and they could see a rowboat with people on board coming up to a dock far below.

“What’s going on?” Mjolnir asked in a concerned tone.

Goggles’ internal computer beeped, “Research complete!” before throwing up an analysis window in his HUD, reading: “These two strands of hair, although from two different people, are in fact the same man. [DeWitt, Booker, ] Readings indicate each strand originates from a different version of the man from....[ERROR: TEMPORAL PARADOX DETECTED. REPORT CORRUPTED]” Goggles was disturbed by the last part of this report. Pretty advanced if it knew exactly what kinds of paradoxes could affect computers, and the fact that this was ultimate proof that Comstock and Booker really did share a connection between universes. He had to remember to tell Booker and Liz this crucial information soon.

Booker and the girl stepped out of the boat and charged up the steps. Goggles could hear Booker saying, “...We can just go on with our lives, we don’t need to-”

“Dead? You mean, like Chen Lin? Like Lady Comstock? No.”

“We can just go to Paris, leave this all behind.”

Elizabeth argued, “No, Booker. Comstock may be dead here, but he’s alive in a million, million worlds. It’s not over because the Prophet is dead. It will only be over when he never even lived in the first place.”

Goggles shook his head, grumbling “You just. Don’t. Get it.”

The soldiers stopped Booker at the door of the lighthouse. Goggles warned him, “Wait, Booker, don’t do this. I have solid evidence that you and Comstock are the same. It says so by your DNA signature, my research software told me.”

“What’s DNA?” Booker asked bluntly.

Goggles tilted his head slightly, since he couldn’t roll his eyes, and replied, “Basically, it’s the substance in your blood that tells everything about you from the inside out.”

“So?” Booker just shrugged.

“‘So’?” Gordon almost laughed. “It means you’ll just be killing yourself if you keep going this way.”

Goggles replayed the video feed from when he saw SHODAN try to override Elizabeth’s place. “Like I said, Comstock’s not the problem. How many times do I have to say this? We need to recover that bomb we left in Emporia, pinpoint where SHODAN started exploiting Tears, and set it off there so that none of this will ever happen again.”

Booker pushed the soldier’s arm down, grunting, “Look, I don’t know, and I don’t care who this SHODAN is. Machine or not, that’s your problem, not mine. The man I was looking for before...you people came along was a madman. A racist, xenophobic, loopohole-abusing schlock! So I’m going to end him if it’s the last damn thing I do! You freakshows do what you like, but I want to see this through to the end, so stay the hell off my back. Got it?”

“Well,” Goggles pocketed his PDA while thinking some things over.

Gordon pointed out, “It’s never a good idea to mess with someone else’s history,”

Elizabeth spoke up, “But he doesn’t remember some his own history. I’m trying to help him fix that. Like the twins once said: ‘The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist.’”

“Oh, that’s rich. I think our memories are intact, thanks,” Gordon scoffed.

Goggles had to remember to ask Delacroix to plug his wiped memory back in when this was over.

“Follow if you must, but cut the stalling and get the fuck out of my way,” Booker demanded. Then he decided to open the door. This time, they entered a gloomy alley in what looked like New York. Robert was looking towards a shimmering circular portal in a brick wall, and a strange man with a dark beard stood before the portal as well, clutching the baby. Booker yelled, “Hey! The deal’s off, you hear me? The deal’s off! I want her back!”

But Robert was occupied with his twin on the other side, who was warning him that the portal had to be closed within seconds. Remembering that the men in armor were beside him, Booker muttered to Goggles, “Stop them, you have the weapons!”

Ignoring the hypocrisy of this DeWitt, and worried about killing people in the past, Goggles reached for his laser pistol and fired several shots at the pair of men. He missed a couple of times, but managed to land a couple of zaps on the bearded man. Neither Mjolnir nor Gordon wanted to fire at all, but noticing this paralyzed him to some degree, Booker made for the man and tried to pry the infant out of his grip. He punched and pounded that guy’s head and tore at his clothes, but with one leap, the man was through the portal after Robert, and just as it slammed shut, the baby stared back at Booker for a split second. Then, like a tree branch, its pinky finger snapped off as the space-time rift closed, leaving the amputated infantile appendage lying bleeding on the ground. Booker fell to his knees, banged on the wall and cried, “NOOOO!!!”

“That...that...oh my God...” Alyx was at a loss for words.

Goggles, who had been filming the event with his artificial eyes, retrieved the severed finger and showed it to Elizabeth, saying, “This, that’s how you lost your finger? A portal cut it in half?”

“Yes, and more came with it...so much more...” Elizabeth’s figure fizzled in and out with that of the much taller humanoid form of SHODAN. “Oh God...what just happened?”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Mjolnir warned.

Booker clutched the wall, cried, “Anna...Anna, I’m so sorry...what have I done?!” Then he calmed down, got to his feet and asked, “That man, that was Comstock, wasn’t it?”

“No...it was...”

“Come on, spit it out already!” Gordon insisted.

Elizabeth answered, “I can’t tell you, doctor. He has to be shown.”

“Forget it, we already know. He’s just stubborn,” Goggles pointed out.

“But why did you give her away? That girl...Elizabeth?” Alyx asked with fear.

“Her name was never Elizabeth...it’s Anna. Anna DeWitt,” Booker replied while starting to tear up. “This scar is all I can remember of her, and it brought me nothing but trouble,” He showed them the faint tattoo on his right hand.

Anna picked up, “And you lost yourself, until that man came to your office,” She paused while the scene changed back to Booker’s office with the refugees in tow, “Now...it’s all happening again...Then 20 years later, he came back, to bring us together again...for one last chance at redemption.”

Goggles asked, “So where do we go from here? We need to get that bomb!”

“I can find it, we just need to create a little contingency first,” Anna ominously replied before opening a new tear, this time to a rocky shoreline with Robert in his raincoat and hat, waiting for them. The group filed through, but Booker fell to the ground and started fizzling in and out of existence again, twitching and flailing more violently than before.

“Now what?” Gordon pondered.

Everyone watched as Booker mumbled more pleas of sorrow. Rosalind looked at the scar on his hand and asked, “Do you suppose he branded himself as some sort of penance? Don’t see the point. What’s done is done. What’s done...WILL be done.”

They watched him mumble other strings of words, eventually forming into that all-too-familiar mantra. Robert smiled, “See? He’s starting to put his story together.”

“Hm, you’re quite fond of this theory of yours.”

“Oh, isn’t that nice,” Gordon mumbled while looking at Robert. The twins were dragging Booker up the shorelines by the shoulders as they talked. The refugees had to back up along with them.

“He’s manufacturing new memories from his old ones,” Robert deduced.  
“Well, the brain adapts,” Rosalind added.

“I should know. I LIVED it,” Robert punctuated.

Goggles moaned while watching, “Oh man, I don’t feel good. I think all this space-time displacement is giving me a headache or something.” He recalled Rosalind’s last conversation with him, and mumbled, “Right, dead here, alive there. Of course.” His Psionic transceiver implant was picking up voices from various timelines again, somehow.

The twins let go of the man, Anna came to his side and said, “Booker, wake up. This is where it started.”

Booker got to his feet, and groggily answered, “I sold you. I...sold you.”

“To your credit, you did try to weasel out of the deal,” Rosalind added.

“This is all Comstock’s fault. What if I went back, killed him before he did any of this?” Booker wondered. “That’s the only way to do it, go back to when he was born, and I’ll smother the son of a b*tch in his crib.”

Goggles stopped him, “No, DeWitt. Don't you understand what I've been saying? Comstock isn't the culprit!”

“Yes, he is.”

“No, he’s not!”

“Yes! He! IS!”

Trying to avoid an endless argument, Booker raised his Sky-Hook as a threat, but the laser rapier sheared the entire rotary mechanism clean off. Then, withdrawing the sword, the soldier held up right hand, balled it into a fist, but then lowered it again and said, “You know what? Fine, if you won’t take no for an answer, then go ahead and do what you want. I won’t try to stop you.”

“You’re serious?”

“You have my word, I have all my guns safely stored away,” Goggles stepped back while holding up his hands. Turning about for the remaining personnel to continue on, he grumbled, “It’s your funeral, asshole.” He shuddered, understanding just how much this place was taking its toll on everybody. First Gordon who tries to leave but can’t, then Booker who won’t admit that he doesn’t have to screw with his own past. What next?

Gordon came up to the soldier and queried, “Hey, I have to ask, why the hell are we following this guy’s timeline, anyway?”

“DeWitt won’t get it through his thick-ass skull that we shouldn’t be looking for ‘Comstock’. And what the crap is this about Anna making a ‘contingency’?”

“Maybe Liz went mad with power over space-time? I’ve seen that before.”

“Probably. She sounds like a whole other person...wait...oh. my. God, I hope I’m wrong!” Goggles gasped before racing up the stairs to the lighthouse.

Trying to recall the time-travel shenanigans, Gordon thought to himself, “If I had to guess, before ever meeting us, whatever Booker’s been through makes him think that Comstock’s worse than SHODAN. Not that I’d know anything about that.”

He made a half-frustrated, half-confused expression, then looked at the two people in raincoats still standing behind, and said to his group, “You all go on ahead. I think those...twins might know something.”

As the remaining refugees ascended the lighthouse steps once more, Gordon raced over to the Luteces and demanded, “Hey, both of you! I don’t think you gave us what we needed to know, back in that...space with my employer. Mind telling me what’s missing here?”

“It’s so obvious, you’re living it right now, the answer’s right in front of your eyes,” Robert laughed.

Gordon fired his shotgun point-blank at Robert’s head, but all that did was cause him to flicker for a moment. He snarked, “Puh, shotgun. Crudest weaponry ever crafted, in my opinion.”

“If you’re intent on killing us, at least try to do it properly,” Rosalind rolled her eyes.

“Oh, so you’re Time Lords, too? Just like that G-Man?”

“Time Lord! Ha, what a name for someone scattered across space and time! Ha ha ha!” Robert laughed.

“Psh, y’know, I once asked myself if reality is breaking down as long as I’m alive. The time period I came from basically proved me wrong because I had people on my side, but what Eliza- um, Anna showed me is starting to bring that back around. What do you think of that?”

“Sorry to deflate your ego, doctor, but reality has nothing to do with one person, that’s quite obvious,” Rosalind pointed out.

“Yeah, I figured as much. It’s been a long time; I don’t really care if someone proves me wrong about something, not now, anyways. But what about DeWitt? What’re he and the girl up to? And why is he so damn stubborn about all this?”

“They’re trying to keep something from happening,” Robert started.

“When – like your friend claims - really it’s not the source of the problem,” Rosalind added.

“They’re looking in the wrong spots, and it’s already starting to take hold.”

“Things get set in motion,” Rosalind claimed.

“How would one know how far back to go?” Robert warned.

“Far enough...” Gordon paused to fit the pieces together in his head. Although he wouldn’t admit it, that theory was valid: While the memories weren’t new, enough evidence had been seen to allow better clarity... “You’re right, it is the big picture that matters, isn’t it?”

“As a matter of fact, you’re correct,” Robert affirmed. They bounced fragments of a sentence back and forth, “It is up to you what matters more, Dr. Freeman.” “Your part in the play,” “Or the play itself.”

“And in this case, DeWitt thinks it’s his part that matters, right? I KNEW something was up!” Gordon realized with a snap of his gloved fingers.

“Make sure to let the man know,” Robert finished, as Rosalind added, “I fear he already has the wrong idea by now.”

“Thanks, I’ll try that.”

In a flash, they were gone, and all that was left to do was enter one more door...he hoped.


	33. A Better Way Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon's team, with aid from the Luteces, shows Booker a means to not have to go through with a dead-end solution, thus saving his life.

The group gathered around that door. Booker placed his hands on it, and Anna looked at him, eye to eye, and asked, “Booker...are you sure this is what you want? There’s no going back, you know.”

“I have to. It’s the only way to undo what I’ve done to you,” Booker insisted while gently touching Anna’s hand.

“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” Alyx cautioned.

Booker shook his head and opened the door. He was ready to find Comstock and destroy him before his reign of terror ever began; to end it all. Not for Booker, but for Comstock. So what if their identities were the same? That was just a coincidence...wasn’t it?

“Are you ready to be baptized, brother? Washed clean of your sins?”

As Booker turned around at the empty river, Anna was suddenly surrounded by a dozen clones of herself, each in a different outfit and hairdo. The one the team knew said, “You chose to walk away, but in other oceans, you didn’t.” Then the others chimed in, “You took the baptism, you were born again as a different man.” “It all has to end.” “To never have started.” “Not just in this world.” “But in all of ours.” They all echoed the word “Smother”. “Before the choice is made.” “Before you are reborn.”

“He’s Zachary Comstock.” Another stated, “He’s Booker DeWitt.”

Booker felt his blood freeze with the horrible realization; he shivered in fear over what was really happening, shuddering, “No...I’m both!”

Then without warning, they grabbed Booker by the shoulders and shoved him into the water, his breath escaping in bubbles. Gordon climbed through, and his teammates saw what was happening behind the clones.

Mjolnir nonchalantly shook his head and sighed, “Well, guess that’s it then for his story. Game over.”

But Goggles had to double-check what he was seeing. Anna and her clones were not entirely there. It was clear to him that SHODAN was trying to take their place through that wormhole Delacroix described.

Gordon tried to intervene, trying to pull on one of them while shouting “Hey, let him go! Stop it!” The clones didn’t listen. Goggles noticed two of the clones were pale and in strange conditions, but looking even closer revealed something even more horrifying: They had implants and wires grafted to their bodies, and the grunting noises they made holding DeWitt underwater sounded more electronic than human. Many of them were chanting, “Smother, smother, smother...” over and over in a distorted voice that sounded very much like SHODAN’s.

Pulling out his assault rifle and loading it with Anti-Personnel bullets, Goggles called to his team mates, “Hey, you heard Freeman! Get DeWitt out of there before he drowns!”

Gordon, in agreement, yelled, “Someone give me a hand, this guy weighs a TON!”

Goggles and Mjolnir quickly grabbed onto the Anna clones holding DeWitt, while Gordon and Alyx pulled Booker out of the water. He gasped for air, coughing and spitting out what water remained in his lungs, and groggily asked, “Ugh...what happened?”

Goggles quickly checked each clone, and verified that the one in the very front was the Anna they knew, so he reached out, grabbed her by the left arm, and hoisted her away from the clones.

“What’s going on?” She muttered in confusion. Her form flickered again.

Gordon snapped, “No time to explain, we need to get out of here!”

As the clones disappeared like a hologram cutting out, Goggles could still see Anna’s body fizzling between her own and that of the tall, rigid form of humanoid SHODAN.

“I’m not the only one seeing this, right?”

“No, I see it too.

Goggles immediately ushered everyone out into the Door network again.

 

\-----

 

With four people carrying Booker DeWitt from both ends like a corpse in a body bag, the refugees and the Anna they knew fled the river the way they did before, this time entering a gloomy series of tunnels with monorails branching all over. One such tram that ran along those lines arrived and automatically opened. The group piled in, set DeWitt against one wall, and the others took their seats as the car took them to god knows where.

“Okay, now we can explain,” Goggles jumped to the point.

Alyx moved over to Booker, snapped her fingers in front of his ears and held his chin up to look at her. His eyes were still shut, so she decided, “I think we should let him sleep, he’s been stressed enough as it is.”

“Good idea, that’s just fine with me,” Goggles shrugged. “God, what’s it got to take to make a guy listen to you?”

“Drowning, like this guy?” Gordon almost laughed, even though it wasn’t funny.

“Anyway, something is definitely not supposed to be happening, but it is, anyway. SHODAN’s trying to override Eliz-, Anna’s position in space-time.”

“But, how? We destroyed her!” Alyx queried.

Goggles humored the doctor, and said, “I think Dr. Freeman would know the answer to that, wouldn’t he?”

“Yep, alternate timelines,” Gordon Freeman elaborated. “Any time travel scenario would pull this crap.”

“In what way?” Alyx wondered.

“Well, I remember what Anna was saying about being dead in one world, but alive in a million, million others; so naturally, in those universes where SHODAN was not destroyed, those versions of her are trying to exploit this girl again. And it’s almost working.”

During this time, Booker recovered and got back on his feet, though he had to grab one of the hanging loops of cloth to stay still in the moving car.

“Oh, you’re awake now.”

Alyx resumed, “So what’s Phase IV going to do to fix this problem? How’s one bomb going to erase a million versions of a hostile computer?”

“I was just getting to that part,” Goggles stated. “Once we find it, all we have to do is locate where SHODAN began exploiting Tears. And I think I figured out where that is. Take a look at this.”

He held out his PDA and loaded a fragment of video where baby Anna was being pulled into the portal to the Lutece laboratory. “This is in frame-by-frame speed. Look here, behind...uh, Rosalind.”

Indeed, through the glowing white ring and behind that scientist, hidden just out of sight, was another Tear with a hologram of SHODAN behind it. The background of that appeared to be her version of cyberspace. Goggles had to zoom in on that spot and enhance the quality so that it wouldn’t look distorted.

“Wouldn’t they have noticed that?” Alyx inquired.

“They were going to turn the machine off, if you recall, and probably didn’t have time to look over there,” Goggles reported.

“But what’s the exact date on that spot?” Gordon inquired.

“I think it’s actually earlier than when this happened.”

“How early?”

“Hmm, Booker, can I see one of those Voxophones? One that has the earliest possible date on it?”

“Sure, just give me a minute,” He fumbled through his damp shoulder bag and found a few of them with the year 1893, and spread them out in chronological order, or as much as he could.

Gordon Freeman glanced out one window and saw a few trams sliding back and forth along the tracks. Far away, one slid past a door with a man in a blue work shirt banging on it, while passing by what sounded like Gordon himself yelling, “SUCKERRRR!!!” The present Gordon chuckled, “Good times, huh, Barney?”

Goggles first picked up one labeled “Rosalind L. 1899”, and played it: “It appears that our work with the tears has reached an interesting point. As a test, my brother asked to see just how far back the device could be set. As it turns out, instead of the past, it almost seemed we were able to see the future.”

“This one’s no good, it’s too late in time.”

He threw that Voxophone to the floor, then scanned the others in the small pile, and concluded, “Okay, that narrows it down to between May and October, 1893. I don’t suppose you or Anna have some other criteria we could work from?”

Anna suggested, trying to get over her weak state, “I...I remember that Ms. Lutece started her work before I lost my finger, which means it was before Comstock even met her. But I’m not sure how much help I am to you anymore if your enemy is still trying to exploit me,” She hung her head and sighed. She looked in Booker’s direction and added with a tone of remorse, “It was his choice, you know. I didn’t want to stop him.” SHODAN appeared again for a split second, causing Anna to suffer a nosebleed yet again.

Goggles comforted the poor soul, “Well, neither did I. I kind of see what you mean now by Constants and Variables. All about choices and what they lead up to. I guess,” Goggles agreed.

The tram continued through a huge automated metal door, while the surrounding tunnel grew brighter by various lights clicking to life.

Booker grumbled angrily, “What...why am I alive?! I thought...” But he stammered, only looking back at everyone else just talking.

“Take it easy, mister. Everything’s under control,” Alyx assured him.

“But I thought...” He stammered.

“Now do you believe me?” Goggles interrupted.

“I...I still don’t understand any of this.”

“Fine, don’t believe me, just watch,” Goggles shrugged.

“I would make up a joke on that line, but no one would laugh,” Gordon pointed out. “Although I did want to say something about that river, but I’ll wait my turn.”

“Thanks, Freeman,” Goggles nodded. “Anyway, where was I?”

“Phase IV?”

“Yeah, that’s it; Okay, here’s what I’m thinking: The knee-jerk reaction to a time travel problem is to kill or incapacitate the person or thing causing that problem, right?”

“Right; and in the movies, nobody knows what consequences come from that until it’s too late. As in, it’d affect someone else’s timeline and possibly kill them in effect. It’s a really tired cliché, actually,” Gordon scoffed.

“Uh-huh, so what I think that bomb will do is effectively cut the connection between universes, and nobody will get hurt as long as they stay away from the actual bomb.”

“Meaning?” Anna wondered.

Goggles addressed the whole group and answered, “Like Mr. Stubborn demonstrated, killing Comstock would kill Booker DeWitt. And preventing SHODAN from existing would destroy my entire military career, maybe even prevent me from existing entirely, or make TriOptimum grow even more out of control.”

“Sure, and?” Anna crossed her arms, waiting for this speech to finish.

“So, instead we can cut Comstock and SHODAN off from our other universes by undoing the space-time damage before it ever takes hold, without affecting anyone in the process.”

“What...what are you saying?” Booker stammered.

Goggles reiterated, “We need to stop SHODAN from exploiting Tears, and in turn Anna. If it works, it’ll be a double-edged sword: In at least some universes, Comstock won’t be able to do what he did to Eliz- um, this girl, and in ours, there won’t be a wormhole between timelines anymore. There are millions of connections between the other universes out there through those Tears, so we’re going to break those connections at their source.”

“I like where this is going, so here’s hoping it works out in the end,” Gordon smiled. He reached out towards the soldier across from him, who knowingly gave the scientist a strong, friendly handshake, and said, “You know, you remind me of Han Solo in a way; A little cocky, great with a gun, and acts like a natural-born leader.”

“Thanks. Never heard of that guy, but I appreciate the compliment,” Goggles smiled back.

Alyx chimed in, “Hey, what were you going to say about that river?”

Gordon reflected, “Oh yeah, I just remember this one time during spring break, away from M.I.T.; Eddie had invited me over to his house for a cookout, when all of a sudden, a bunch of people challenged me to see who could make the best splash into the pool while drunk. He told me not to do it, but I took the dare anyway.”

“And?”

“Things got pretty hectic from there. Before long, everybody was drunk off their asses and the neighbors had to call the cops. A lot of people – including me, weren’t very good at diving, and some people almost drowned and they had to be fished out. I was lucky enough to not end up with a ticket on the way back to college.”

“Ouch. Now I get the similarities,” Alyx noticed.

“Guess that’s why public pools ban alcohol,” Gordon shrugged.

“Hey, I’ve gotta say,” Goggles smirked, “even in dark hours like this, it’s nice to still have some humor to throw around every once in a while. Stressful as this situation may be, I have to give you props for that, Gordon.”

“Thanks, it’s been a while since someone gave me a single compliment for my work,” Gordon smiled.

“I know what you mean. Nobody had a single joke to crack on the Von Braun in my time period. Course, my only company at the time was SHODAN who wouldn’t give me so much as a ‘thank you’ because she didn’t like me being an organism, so that’s probably why,” Goggles mused.

“Ugh, that sounds terrible, if what we’ve seen today is any guide,” Alyx cringed.

Anna flickered again, bringing SHODAN into existence for a split second, and her distorted voice cried, “I heard that!” Anna returned to her normal self and groaned, “That wasn’t me, I swear!”

“Speak of the digital devil and she appears,” Gordon cracked.

Gordon looked around and noticed that Booker was still drowsy and had moved to a seat near the front, Anna sat alongside Alyx, both of whom just sat still and calm, and Mjolnir 54 looked like he was about to fall asleep as well, way in the back. Around them, the tunnel they were in seemed to have changed to a huge intersection of tram lines with dozens of trams thundering back and forth, so this clearly wasn’t Black Mesa anymore.

He changed the subject, “By the way, I’m just curious: What is this Von Braun, anyway? Was it the thing I had to get into from outer space?”

“Yeah, pretty much. It’s a big spaceship with a military escort docked on top. They said it was supposed to be the first faster-than-light ship ever, but TriOptimum was too hasty getting it set up for it to pass safety inspections. Even before the invasion, the place popped its coolant tubes and just spelled trouble all around. Everyone knew it, and I had to suffer through it.”

“Wow, sounds like Black Mesa, my old workplace that somehow never got inspected by OSHA. No handrails, no supported catwalks, giant toxic waste spills, even a meaningless ‘box-smashing room’. Hell, look at my ear!” He turned his head slightly so that his right ear faced toward Goggles.

“Ow, how’d you get a scar like that?!” The soldier cringed.

“A freaking automated turret gun shot off part of the lobe when I was just trying to climb some stairs, that’s how!”

“Good god, guess TriOp wasn’t the only dumb corporation out there! I got shot by turret guns too, but at least I could turn them off or reprogram them.”

“Good for you. Wish I knew how to hack computers, maybe then they’d stop shorting out or blowing up in my damn face!”

“I don’t know, they might blow up BECAUSE you hacked them. I had to open crates by hacking their locks, which could explode if I screwed up. And that was deliberate – they had, like a C4 charge in them or something.”

“Okay, okay, I think we get the picture,” Alyx stopped this tangent.

“Right, sorry. All in all, I guess we both went through hilariously weird sh*t, huh?” Goggles apologized.

“Yeah, but let’s chalk it up to ‘coincidence’ and not ‘constants and variables’. Ahem,” Gordon concluded while tilting his head towards Anna.

The girl stood up, looked through the front window, and pointed to a catwalk close by, stating, “There, that’s where the bomb is located.”

“How convenient, thanks,” Goggles smiled while patting her on the shoulder after standing up.

“Will this really help me?” She wondered while looking back at the cyborg. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold together if someone’s trying to hijack my body!”

“We’ll just have to pick up the pace and hope for the best,” Goggles concluded.

“Now arriving at: Sector C Test Labs, and control facilities,” An automated voice declared over the tram’s intercom.

“Pretty sure that’s fake, considering where we are right now,” Gordon brushed it off.

The tram came to a stop at a long catwalk, whose red lights turned to green as the tram fully ceased motion. Instead of like before, the door simply opened automatically. As the group cautiously filed out, Alyx wondered, “So what are we going to get out of all this? Victory?”

“I just want to go back to my normal life. Over. I want to see Earth again, and not in this timeline, no way,” Goggles sighed.

“Me too. I miss Dr. Kliener, and Barney, of course,” Gordon sighed.

They approached a heavy-looking bulkhead with some serious-looking bolts and locking mechanisms, with the only access appearing to be a keypad and some buttons.

“Uh, is this the real world, or one of those weird doors again? Because if it’s the latter, why bother with a code?” Gordon asked off-handedly.

“Here, I think I would know the code,” Anna stepped over to the keypad. Knowingly, she tapped in the digits “4-5-1”, and that prompted the door to release its locks and hiss open.

“Wait, this is wrong, I wasn’t prepared for this!” Anna claimed when she saw the other side.

As the group filed inside, they had to wait for the airlock to cycle and to release the other door. Goggles looked around and realized what this was.

Booker claimed first, “I saw this before, in the place that woman sent me. It was full of these people...with metal stuck to their skin...and,”

“Let me guess: cyborgs? Yeah, I know what this is all right,” Goggles jumped in. “I was here when I destroyed SHODAN before I met you people. This is what she calls home – even reality itself, and I get the feeling that she’s watching us right now.”

Waiting in anxiety for the other door to open, one of the squares on the wall seemed to change shape. Indeed, it widened into another wide-screen monitor, like how it would be if a monitor popped out behind concrete tiles.

“Shhhiiit,” Gordon hissed. “Where’s my air vent!?”


	34. Phase IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bomb is recovered, and Goggles instructs his colleagues on what to do with it and where it should be set off.

For a brief moment, the face of SHODAN appeared in the glowing rectangle, just to yell, “Step right into my trap, little insects!” before Gordon took out his Spas-12 shotgun and fired at it, snarling, “FUCK! OFF!” causing the rectangle to go blank again.

“Look out, I’m seeing a lot of cyborgs at 9’o clock!” Goggles warned.

“Get behind me, girls. I can handle these freaks.” Booker asserted himself while loading his machine gun.

“Hey!” Alyx shouted.

The four armored men opened fire on the squadron of cyborgs. It was hard to tell just who these people used to be under all that machinery, but some seemed more advanced than others. Two of them were familiar cyborg assassins with their distinctive visors. But nonetheless, they all went down under the endless barrage of bullets and explosives.

When the cyborgs were all down, a live grenade from Gordon went off, denting and loosening one of the black squares from its fitting in the digital wall.

“What’s that?” Goggles asked before he lurked towards the panel to investigate it. Just to be sure, he tapped the panel with his knuckles and heard a distinct computerized “ping” sound in response. Cyberspace or not, it was a solid object. It wasn’t loose enough to pry off with his bare hands, though. To do that, the wrench was too thick and the laser rapier was still a little flimsy on really hard surfaces – and that was with the increased tension he’d added to it. Then he looked at Gordon and asked, “Hey, Freeman, can I see that crowbar of yours? I can’t get this panel off myself with any of my tools.”

“Here, I’ll do it,” Gordon replied before walking over there and almost pushing Goggles out of the way. Using the flat end of his distinctive red crowbar, Gordon, after about 30 seconds of struggling, finally pulled it off. It landed to the ground with another strange electronic thud, revealing a glowing “hole” filled with multicolored squares, or perhaps pixels, surrounding what seemed to be a very small access panel.

Looking to either side, Goggles commanded, “Look sharp, guys, I need to focus for a minute.”

“You got it,” Gordon nodded before reloading his MP7 submachinegun.

Goggles plugged the data cable between the access panel and his touchpad, bringing up the familiar hacking screen. Inserting his ExperTech implant and checking that his heavy armor was on right; Goggles deposited 4 nanites and set to work. ICE nodes were all over the place, so he had only about 3 chances to make a 3-in-a-row line.

While he was working, three holographic cyborg assassins appeared out of nowhere and immediately threw shuriken at the others. They took a lot of bullets and grenades to go down, and Goggles grew more and more boxed in by the dark nodes, but a little ways after the last assassin dropped dead, Goggles ran out of moves, actually setting it into “Critical failure!”, locking him out. Disconnecting from it, he stepped back and grumbled, “Darn it.”

Alyx stepped up, held out her EMP tool, and stated, “Move over, I know how to get through these kinds of things. With a “zap-zap” from that device, the panel was quickly forced into submission. They both then saw that the inner door was already in the process of opening.

The hydraulics and huge locking pins slid out of position, after which the huge door hissed open in a loud mechanical whirr, revealing that Anna’s prediction was right: They were back in the abandoned Lutece lab.

“Quick, hide!” Goggles whispered hastily.

The refugees ducked behind the huge half-broken machinery and watched themselves leave the room. Gordon saw himself drape the asbestos-laced fire blanket over the bomb, complete with his comment on its odor. When their past selves had all vacated the premises, Goggles hissed, “Okay, coast is clear!”

“Was that...us?” Alyx asked out of slight shock.

“Definitely,” Gordon affirmed. “I’d recognize my own voice anywhere.”

“By the way, Alyx, what was that thing you just hacked the panel with?” Goggles inquired.

“It’s a little tool my father gave me. Nothing much, it just sends an EMP into anything I aim it at. Doesn’t really count as hacking, but it came in real handy for overriding door locks and computers.”

“Guess that’s one way to hack things,” he shrugged. “Anyway, let’s get what we came for.”

Gordon lifted the dangerous 20th-century safety device away from the boxes of explosives, but after pulling it aside, he stopped and asked, “Hang on a second, where’s the hand trolley?”

Booker looked about and saw the device in question. “It’s over there by the door, I doubt Fred took it with him. I’ll get it.”

He strolled towards the cargo lifting apparatus, but stopped when realizing how hungry he was. “Oh, damn it!”

“What?”

“I’m hungry. It’s been a while since I had anything.”

“Look, I’m sure we’re all starved to death, but is this really a good time?” Goggles all but complained.

“Hey, I’d look for food if I needed to, also,” Gordon pointed out.

“Hold on, I’ll find something,” he mumbled before looking for the lab’s kitchen.

Anna off-handedly commented, “If I know him, he’s going to be looking in the last places people would hold food.”

“Uh...?” Alyx stuttered.

“I don’t even wanna know!” Gordon groaned.

“I’ll get the trolley,” Mjolnir suggested.

As a matter of fact, Booker had located a storage closet with some perfectly safe canned and packaged goods on the shelves. Trying to be careful, he grabbed a sandwich, a can of peas, one bottle of soda and an apple. Good enough for a late lunch. Being a sterile environment, he decided it best to leave the place where he found it. He used a nearby counter with some paper towels overtop to dine there while the others worked.

Meanwhile, Gordon looked the half-dead Lutece Device over, trying to process why it looked significant somehow.

“What is this thing? If it’s broken, why did we plant the bomb here?”

Goggles intercepted an email and showed it to Gordon on his PDA: “Why do you ask what, when the delicious question is when? Lives, lived, will live. Dies, died, will die.”

\-----

“Wait, I think I’ve got it,” Goggles responded. He rushed over to a counter, found a few sheets of blank paper, set his PDA down and opened up the diagram of the wormhole, then scrawled with a pen. Anna joined him, but still felt weary from having to share distant dimensional space with SHODAN.

While Mjolnir scooped up the bomb and loaded it into the trolley, with the detonator safely tucked on top of the stacked crates, Anna helped the soldier with his planning.

“Okay, that’s the wormhole, this is where it intersects our timelines...” he stated, moving a finger across certain details. He wrote down dates at the confirmed points along the wormhole and where it breached space-time, forming tears. Anna’s eyes widened when it appeared that the wormhole breached her and Booker’s timeline not once, but twice, unlike everyone else’s. And one of the spots was more significant than the others. July 7th, 1912 was hers, but it was the smaller of the two. Goggles scribbled in the top left corner, “Criteria: May-October 1893, in this laboratory. What’s the exact destination?”

Anna looked over his shoulder at that note, and replied, “Wouldn’t the destination be right here in this room?”

“Yes, but WHEN? I need an exact day and month for this to work!” The solder grumbled while pounding his right fist on the counter in frustration.

Gordon pointed out, “I think we’ll just have to guess the proper date and hope it works.”

“Are you nuts? That’s dangerous!” Goggles retorted.

“What we’re going to do is dangerous in itself, man!”

Goggles paused, thinking it over, then sighed, “Point taken.”

Booker DeWitt, having finished his meal, returned to the lab room. He boredly asked, “Did I miss anything?”

“Not much,” Goggles shook his head, explaining “The thing is, like your...uh, daughter described, our target is this machine at a time before it’s destroyed, but...” He paused, coming up with a new step to the plan, “Wait, I just remembered: We’ll need to leave a note for the Luteces in case they see this thing before it goes off.”

“Right, otherwise those people would think we were trying to kill them, which would not be good for the timeline,” Gordon agreed.

Goggles continued, “But we’ll have to write it in a way that doesn’t leave any evidence that we did it. So it can’t be handwritten or an audio log.”

“What about a typed note?” Anna suggested.

“Perfect. Is there a computer around here?” Goggles asked hurriedly.

“Computer? What’s that?” Anna asked out of confusion.

“Sorry, 20th-century, forgot about that,” Goggles chuckled sheepishly.

“I think I saw a typewriter in the lobby,” Booker suggested.

“Okay, let me see it,” Goggles nodded before standing up and following Mr. DeWitt. Indeed, through the double doors leading to the sterile front room of the lab, the main reception desk had a fairly new manual typewriter with plenty of blank sheets.

Then he turned to Booker, smirked, and told him, “Hey, if you hate Comstock so much, and don’t want him to mess with your timeline or daughter anymore, why don’t you do the honors of typing this message?”

Surprised at this proposal, he asked, “Really?”

“It’s the only way to be sure that SHODAN can’t interfere ever again. Besides, it’s a better solution than drowning yourself, I know it!”

Booker rolled up his sleeves, took a deep breath, and stated, “Okay, I’ll do it.” He set his hands over the keys of the typewriter.

“I’ll describe what needs to be done, but you can write it.”

“Got it,” Booker DeWitt confirmed. Standing at the desk, he sat down and typed the warning note as concisely as he could to Goggles’ instructions, “Robert, Rosalind, if you’re reading this, it means you’re in grave danger. I mean you no harm; this bomb is not meant to hurt you but to prevent something even greater than your life from going horribly wrong; the bomb is set to explode in 15 minutes, so listen carefully:

Booker paused, thinking over what Comstock really did to him and his daughter, and poured his own emotions and experiences, along with the soldier’s own words, into the next paragraph.

“This Tear device is a threat to millions of lives. In the wrong hands, it spells doom for people all over the world, in the past, present, and future. If you’ve met a man named Zachary Hale Comstock, then it’s already started taking hold. I’ve seen what Comstock has done, and nothing about it is good. He exploited your machine for his own purposes by spying into other universes and writing it off as a ‘prophecy’, and gave Jeremiah Fink a means to make impossible tech for selfish and controversial purposes. In fact, that same man will try to kill you in the future, but this bomb provides a way out.

Booker stopped, and asked Goggles, “Wait, what are the twins supposed to do when they see this?”

The formulae and riddles worked in his head, but he facepalmed, and called, “Anna! We need your omnipotence!” He cringed, asking himself, “Did I seriously just say that?”

The girl arrived, asking, “Yes?”

“There’s a critical point here, and it’s tied to the Luteces, I just don’t know what it is!” he grumbled.

“Understandable. You didn’t get the full story. Fortunately, I know it from all of Booker’s Voxophones,” Anna nodded.

“All right, what do you know?”

“Some of the logs say that the Luteces want to send me back to where I came from, or Robert leaves his ‘sister’.”

“Okay, good,” the soldier nodded.

“Well, that failed, they failed, Booker failed...how many times was it? A hundred and twenty-two?”

“Yikes, that sounds oppressing!” Goggles gasped.

“Don’t remind me,” Booker groaned.

Anna’s image stuttered between her own and SHODAN again, interrupting her speech for a second, then the girl continued as herself, “Yes, I see it now: We’re driving them apart before any of this happens.”

“Perfect,” Goggles clapped his hands a couple of times. “Thank you. How did you know all that?”

“Do I need to explain it?” She hung her head in a way that would’ve been accompanied by “jazz hands”.

“Never mind,” He swiveled back around and continued dictating to DeWitt, with some aid from Anna, “This is what I want you to do: 1) Robert Lutece must be sent back to his own timeline. I’m very sorry about your desire to be with him, but it’s just not meant to be. He is an involuntary part of the global threat here, so he must go. It’s for the better. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few in this case. 2) As for you, Rosalind, you must take what you can and abandon Columbia before Comstock takes notice. Anywhere is better than that flying nightmare of a city! After all, it’s pointless to waste good science in a bad place. Your research – both yours and your brother’s – could be used somewhere much better, I’m sure of it.

Booker was sweating by the time he was about to finish, “For all our sakes, I pray you take my warnings seriously! Good luck.”

He finished the message, pulled the last of two pages out of the typewriter, and showed them to the soldier. He eyed them over quickly, then nodded, “Good, that seems convincing to me. You ready, Booker?”

Booker cracked his knuckles twice before nodding, “I’m ready, let’s end this!”


	35. Self-Sacrifice In The Line Of Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goggles abandons his team so that SHODAN will stop trying to kill them, once and for all. Only question is: What will become of him?

Booker, Goggles, and Anna returned to the lab, and the soldier declared, “Okay, we’re all set. Now we have to hunt down the proper time period, and obviously we have someone to light the way to it, right?”

“As much as I can try,” Anna answered with a bit of hesitation.

The door they’d come through had since shut, but Anna simply opened a new one with a simple swift thrust of her hands, enveloping the whole lab and thrusting the group, bomb and all, to a new segment of the Door network. This time, the segment opened into a stark white void with floating black tiles weaving around like the walkways from before. Now they could see that in the distance, Goggles and Marie Delacroix were walking together along some of the paths. This confused him, though, as Goggles never really had a bond like Elizabeth to that woman.

He voiced this confusion, “That’s weird, am I looking at some alternate universe where Delacroix was with me along this whole adventure?”

“Who knows? It could happen,” Anna suggested.

The black tiles formed into a concise bridge, with Anna gesturing with her hand, “It’s this way.”

“Let’s move, then. No time to waste – no pun intended,” Goggles commanded.

The whole group made a powerful stride down the bridge, towards a stark doorway glaring from the other end of the bridge inside this whiteness. As Goggles looked over the side, he saw himself and Delacroix walk past below them on another bridge perpendicular to where he was standing, but when he looked closer, it almost seemed like Marie Delacroix was one of those psionic ghosts, and yet talking to him as if she was always with him like Anna and Booker. He listened in on a conversation between the two. Delacroix was doing most of the talking.

“Mon pétit, I have a bad feeling about this: what if we are actually walking into another one of SHODAN's schemes? Consider the implications: we both require each other, as we need the help of SHODAN to undermine the Many and she needs ours to exert her control over Xerxes. But as enter our... final match, SHODAN's very last move is to reboot the game: did she plan out her move in advance? Looking at our fading grasp on the situation, I fear that her goal had always been to just outlast every other player in this infinite match.”

That statement sent a chill down the present soldier’s spine. Did SHODAN know that these people were coming this way? Was that why Anna was always flickering in and out of existence? God, when will it end?

“Um, Goggles, are you okay?” Alyx interrupted his thoughts.

“I’m fine, I’m just a little nervous, is all,” he shrugged it off.

As they neared the door, asked Gordon, “Dr. Freeman, I’m a little surprised at you about this: How did you come up with so many theories about reality?”

“Like I said, I’m a theoretical physicist with degrees from Innsbruck and M.I.T. What else did you think I would’ve done whilst fighting for my life, again and again?”

“I don’t know?” Goggles shrugged.

“Everyone knows that a scientist’s job is to try and make sense of the world around him, but everywhere I went made no physical sense. And nobody else noticed things were up?”

Booker just coughed, and Mjolnir groaned a little from the pain of still hauling the crates of explosives behind everyone else.

“But I’ll give those Lutece people credit: They sure know how to prove me wrong. Well played. Even that other guy in the suit wasn’t that bizarre.”

The door lead to a new set of pathways and towers, except these ones were enormously tall and covered in sharp, dark blue metal. The sky was an unhealthy shade of orange, and the walkways were jagged slabs of steel with sinister-looking handrails lined with jutting metal protrusions.

“Oh God, I hate this place!” Gordon moaned.

“Me too,” Alyx cringed.

“What?” Booker inquired.

“It’s...well, it’s based on the Combine Citadel, mixed with what looks like their homeworld. If I was actually there and not in this...mock-up, I would just scream, big-time,” Gordon elaborated.

“I would love to hear you scream, Doctor!” a distinctive electronic voice taunted from the other end of this bridge.

“Crap, not again!” Goggles snarled.

Ahead, several bridges formed to intersect this one, and on them emerged a group of markedly green women accompanied by a squad of Combine soldiers.

“Get out of my f*cking way!” Gordon shouted before throwing a grenade at the soldiers in front. But just as he threw it, something sucked it in and threw it back in his face!

Gordon shrieked, Booker caught it, and threw it back into the air just before it exploded into pieces of shrapnel.

One of the green women levitated into the air, the same futuristic pseudo-Chinese caricature Gordon and Alyx saw in their alternate future, smiled, and declared, “Th-th-throw down your weapons, and I shaaaal n-n-n-not return fire.”

“Says the freak who’s surrounded by people who’ll shoot on command!” Gordon yelled.

Booker quietly suggested, “Let’s just keep moving and ignore her. I’ve had enough shooting.”

The refugees continued their precession along this catwalk, ignoring SHODAN’s demands. Just as the soldiers began to aim their guns and fire, Anna suddenly opened a Tear under them, dropping them to who knows where. With them gone, Goggles could see other versions of SHODAN, maybe two or three dozen of them, on the intersecting bridges. Some were powerful bulking robots, others slim androids like the one they fought in Columbia, several were humans turned to cyborgs, one in front startlingly looking like Rebecca Siddons – although with a very weird hairdo reminiscent of the face full of cables SHODAN usually sported when not in a body; and a couple more clones as huge, lumbering hybrids of man and machine. Goggles didn’t need another monologue from that AI to understand what was happening.

“I’m sorry, this road’s closed, I need you to detour to Bleakwood Avenue!” Gordon tried to flavor a combat scene, readied his AR2, and let it rip, but the clones wouldn’t budge despite the plasma bullets and even an energy pellet that had no effect at all. “I said this road’s closed, you need to go around!”

“I...don’t think SHODAN’s listening, Gordon,” Alyx alerted her companion.

Gordon lowered his gun and sighed, “Come on, is there no end to this harpy?!”

“There’s....there’s just no escaping her, is there?” Anna gasped, fearing she’d be exploited again, a disturbing contrast to the enthusiastic taste of power she received not 10 minutes ago.

Goggles took a good long look at all the people in front of him, thinking about what got them this far and why, what they had to suffer through to get here. Everything they’d done, they’d done against immeasurable odds. So now, he figured...it was time to take a very, very big risk. No way in hell should they be turned back now! Not on his watch!

Goggles turned to face SHODAN and her clones, held up his hands and stated, “Hey, I surrender!”

His colleagues and even some of the clones were shocked at that proposal, but the one who hovered just smiled and replied, “Very good. Do-”

“On these terms,” he interrupted.

Figuratively gritting her teeth, SHODAN answered, “F-F-F-Fine, what is it?”

“You let the girl be, you leave my colleagues to their business, and I offer my body to you...for whatever twisted desires you have for me.”

Many of the SHODAN clones and her prime form smiled, saying, “Goooood, I already have...I already have...I already have many plans, and I know j-ju-just the place for a speck like you!” She hovered back down to ground level and summoned one of her clones.

“SHODAN Beta-zero-five, standing by,” that clone reported to its leader. This being appeared to be a half-dead human stuffed inside a hi-tech white space suit or diving suit, with strange black strands weaving across its surface like how tar leaks from the seams in concrete tiles. Glowing bluish-white spheres protruded from it like some kind of alien cancer.

As that presumably cybernetic version of SHODAN stepped forth, a bridge leading to the left towards a door in one of the Citadels contrasted with an automated door that looked more akin to those in a submarine.

“Wait, I need to say a few words to my colleagues,” the soldier demanded.

“Then hurry, my patience is dwindling,” SHODAN Beta-05 grumbled.

Goggles looked back again, and Gordon was the first to step forward. He asked with as straight a face as he could, though failing, “Dude, are you seriously giving yourself up to this...crazy-ass AI? After we just fought her off, again?”

Goggles leaned close and whispered in his ear, “It’s a compromise. Take this,” he fished out the key to the clock and stuffed it into Gordon’s right hand, covering it in such a way that SHODAN wouldn’t see it. “Arm the bomb, then get your asses back to your time zones. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, right, before she probably rips those cameras out of your skull and maybe mind-wipes you, for good measure! I’ve seen enough sci-fi movies to know how this sh*t works,” Gordon retorted with heavy doubt.

“Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“But why? Just...why?” Alyx pleaded.

“I have to say, Gordon had a point, you really are a good leader in combat,” Booker pointed out while wiping his mouth.

“Without you...what can we do by ourselves out here?” Anna stammered.

“You realize, you won’t get shot anymore if I go. We don’t have to keep spewing lead for at least a while. And I’m sure all of you have gotten sick of shooting by now, right?” Goggles stated.

The men and Alyx all agreed.

Anna noticed a slight shift in tone in the soldier’s voice, and suspected that he had something else besides having someone else arm the bomb up his sleeve, but said nothing.

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” she warned with a dark tone in her voice.

“If it’ll make SHODAN leave you guys alone once and for all, then yes. I’m sorry,” Goggles hung his head.

“Well...good luck. Thanks for getting us this far,” Booker solemnly finished with a thick handshake.

“I don’t know what’s worse: Watching your own father get stabbed in front of you, or a good leader and friend leave and possibly end up mutilated, but if it’s for the greater good, well...I respect you for that...Goggles,” Alyx sighed.

“Like they say, see you starside,” Mjolnir 54 added.

With a heavy heart, Goggles turned around and walked away towards SHODAN Beta-5. The others continued on, led by Anna as a guide in this network, across a bridge leading the opposite direction from this door, hopefully towards the Lutece Labs.

Goggles whipped around to glance at SHODAN prime and demanded, “You’ll keep your word, or it’s more explosives for you!”

SHODAN said nothing, just watched the other refugees leave with their precious cargo untouched.


	36. System Shock SOMA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out Goggles was brought to the underwater Pathos-II base for a new experiment in machine dominating flesh, using conveniently placed technology. Or more like "reverse-engineered", perhaps.

SHODAN Beta-05 led the soldier to a dimly-lit hi-tech chamber with some strange machinery that somewhat reminded him of the Von Braun’s tech, but just a little older than that. From one wall to the other, the chamber’s contents were odd: A chair with a curious visor overhead connected to a computer terminal, some lockers for suits lining a wall, a sign reading: “Pathos-II – Upsilon ϓ”, some server racks wiring everything together, and a bizarre glowing pod jutting from another black vein in the wall.

“Sit down, and remove your weapons immediately. All of them.” SHODAN ordered.

Looking closely at the chair and covertly injecting a Strength Booster, Goggles put up no fight, set down his weapon-laden backpack along with his melee weapons, near the bank of lockers, and willingly sat down in the chair. Immediately, she fastened some manacles around his wrists and legs.

“Dare I ask what you plan to do with me?” He begrudgingly inquired.

“Why should I botherrrrr e-e-e-ex-explaining, insect? You won’t survive to know the details....to know the details...to know the details. If I were you, I’d just sit back...and relax,” she suggested sinisterly while plugging some kind of handheld device into the terminal to activate it.

Goggles leaned back while SHODAN Beta-05 started up a program on the terminal. The visor lowered, clamped itself over Goggles’ face, and lit up with a camera feed replacing the same angle of his own eyesight. He felt a tingly sensation and a faint ringing resonating from around his ears as the machine started doing whatever it was SHODAN was programming it to do.

On the terminal’s screen, a prompt appeared, reading: “Scan program ready. Initialize?” with two buttons labeled “Yes” and “No”. SHODAN tapped “Yes” using the monitor’s touch-screen surface.

A progress bar began to fill up while various texts showed results. “Subject: [G65434-2]; Preparing SOMA template.” 

Simultaneously, the tingling effect grew stronger and stronger around the prisoner’s head with the display breaking into pixels. He struggled in his shackles to break free, and continued to work at it while SHODAN kept one eye on the screen and one eye on the chair. She knew what was to happen when this project completed, and so made sure to keep him alive for the time being.

“Initiating capture sequence.”

At this point, the soldier put a new plan into action. Whatever was to happen next, he didn’t want to find out. If it wasn’t for the helmet over his head and the fuzzy effect around him, Goggles would’ve yelled, “Psych!” His HUD was flashing again, reading: “Danger: High-intensity EM waves detected!” while the computer voice parroted, “Electromagnetic hazard!”

“Sending SOMA file...”

The electromagnetism was seizing up his cyber-interface so much it was almost impossible to move or think clearly. But with the extra strength-boosting drug in his system, he hoped that that would give him an edge against these shackles. He suspected that this electromagnetism might have been what was causing that Psi-interference earlier, in addition to the thing about crossing into other universes being bad for your brain.

“Capture process complete.”

As quickly as it had started, the fizzling effect stopped; but as the helmet slid back up, Goggles’ own cyber-rig was still in bad shape, leaving him with a dizzy effect that interfered with his urge to bust out of the chair’s clamps. SHODAN removed a strangely-shaped data drive from the console along with the handheld tool, plugging it into a slot at some large machine Goggles couldn’t see at this point. Then, she stepped over to the soldier’s bag, reached down and considered which weapon would be good enough to kill this insect in one hit. She settled on the assault rifle and conveniently found it still loaded with anti-personnel bullets. Perfect for ripping the useless meat out of her former ally like a razor stripping skin from a leg.

Fighting the nausea-inducing dizziness, Goggles tapped into all the strength he had, and rocked back and forth, trying to ignore the itchy feeling in his head. Surprisingly, within a few more seconds of straining, the manacles snapped out, proving that they weren’t designed to be part of the chair.

SHODAN Beta-05 cocked the rifle, aimed it at the soldier’s head, taunted, “Say goodbye, irritant!”, and fired. What she didn’t count for was the accuracy, as from where she was standing, three bullets ripped through not the head, but his suit, nonetheless making him groan in pain. 

"Anti-Personnel bullets?" Goggles taunted while trying to shake off those wounds, "Well-played. Uh, but you might want to take another look at that gun *pant*, hasn't been kept up to code since my last meeting with you, if you know what I mean." 

SHODAN turned the gun around and attempted to analyze any faults in the mechanism. But that was just the bait he needed. The soldier, no longer restrained, jumped out of the chair, reached for his wrench, smacked this iteration of SHODAN upside the head with a satisfying “CLANG!” and made it slump to the floor before it could so much as turn its head. Then, scrambling for his laser pistol before the zombie AI cyborg could get back up, he switched it to “OVERLOAD” mode and fired point-blank at the helmet she was wearing. One blast from it apparently shorted out whatever circuitry was inside her suit, since there was no head at all from what its visor showed. He wished he’d thought of EMP grenades first, but a laser blast worked just as good.

“Ha, I told you I’m not joining you!” He taunted after that shot. He abruptly coughed up a trickle of blood, and immediately snatched a med hypo from his pack and injected it. Hopefully, he'd heal up enough to get out of wherever this place was.

Guessing that was only a stunning blow and not a fatal one, though, he hastily searched for a way out. The door from the network was gone, and he feared this may well be a dead end for him; spending the rest of his life in the past...if that’s what it was. But Goggles spied the handheld object and, thinking it would be useful, plugged it back into the terminal out of curiosity. Goggles examined the gadget and saw that it was called a “Haimatsu Omnitool”. A voice from the terminal spoke, “Terminal 17, including Pilot Seat, activated.”

“What the hell is this thing? An electronic multitool?”

The computer opened to a menu of options. “System Status”, “Omnitool”, “Pilot Seat”, and “Surveillance”. Looking around, Goggles made a mental note to check another console with a sign reading “Robot manager C”

He scrolled through the options one by one, taking note of certain points: It was the year 2104, this tool was a way to interact with the base in general, and the Pilot Seat, apparently meant for remotely controlling machines, had a strange option reading “z#s[Scan_Program]1a5”, most likely what SHODAN used on him. Only question was: What for?

That’s what prompted him to switch over to the other computer, this one with options labeled, “Robot overview”, “Robot status”, “Power manager” and “Manage Cortex chip”. Starting with the third one allowed Goggles to restore emergency power to this area, and the lights in this room, which helped. Then, switching to “Manage cortex chip” it revealed a window reading, “Docked robot: Heavy-Duty. Cortex chip: Installed. S43_AI_: [G65434-2]” A button nearby read: “AI Manager”, but he dared not touch it.

“Sh*t” He hissed, realizing that this was the plan for this version of SHODAN: To copy his brain and place it inside a robot. He assumed that she’d probably tweak that version of him into a mindless, obedient slave with no free will or morality. The words from SHODAN’s cyberspace self, way back before this huge mission started, echoed in his head, “If I de-desired, I could improve you. Transform you into some...into something more...efficient. Join me, human. And-and-and we can rule...and we can rule...together.”

Goggles decided he couldn’t let that happen. Not then, not now, not ever. “Nah” was all he had to say on the matter.

Moving back to the main menu, he selected “Robot status”, which read: “Power: Offline. Task: No program loaded. Pilot: Absent.” A button there bore the word: “Initialize”. The soldier tapped that as well, and watched what he now saw as a huge lumbering blocky robot begin to power up and rise. Its chassis seemed to be fitted with with massive claws for hands, several glowing lights and large cameras for eyes, bigger than his own, and somehow coated with that same mass of black tendrils, forming a starfish-shaped blob in one corner.

“Christ, this place is f*cked up. The sooner I get back to my time period, the better,” Goggles muttered to himself, wondering what this copy of him was about to say.

\-----

“Why did SHODAN and her clones just leave us alone like that?” Gordon pondered while Elizabeth guided their group to the proper door. “It’s not like her...I think.”

“Didn’t you hear Goggles? He demanded that she leave us be, and I think she listened, although unwillingly, it sounded like,” Anna pointed out.

“Something’s telling me it’s not going to last,” Alyx warned.

Mjolnir moaned from the strain and asked, “Hey, anyone else want to switch cargo duty? I’m freaking sore here!”

“Here, I’ll take over for ya,” Booker obliged.

“Thanks.”

Booker gripped the handle of the trolley and continued pushing the heavy boxes full of TNT. As the precession continued, Booker asked his daughter, “How much farther is this particular door?”

“Not that far, it’s a straight line from here.”

Handling the heavy load of explosives much better than the 28th century security guard, Booker felt somewhat happy that he actually had something to do.

Gordon reflected on another of his past events. “Hauling those boxes of TNT reminds me of how many times I got stopped by security in airports. Every single one of them thought I was hauling bombs or weapons, and a lot of them nearly got me arrested. Damn terrorist conspiracies!”

“I was trying to get a ticket to an airship out of Columbia, but I was set up and everyone started firing at me! Scared the daylights out of Anna,” Booker mused.

“Aircraft transit is strange, man,” Gordon shrugged.

Gordon looked off to his right and saw a half-open door looking into a room where dozens of blue-suited citizens were seated before a huge hologram of Dr. Breen, addressing them just like Big Brother. “Well, that looks familiar,” Alyx shrugged.

Anna's sense of multi-universe awareness awakened a psychic tangent that caused her to gasp, "It's Goggles, I can sense him!"

"What?" Gordon asked in confusion.

"It...well, I can't explain it, but somehow I know he's alive."

Alyx asked, "How do you figure?"

"SHODAN...well, that version of SHODAN, would've killed him by now."

Booker inquired, "What the hell does that mean? He sacrificed himself, didn't he?"

"Yes, but maybe I can open a Tear that can get him out of...wherever it was that version of SHODAN sent him to," Anna proposed.

Gordon shrugged, then stated, "Physics don't work in this place, so go do what you gotta do. We have more practical work, anyway." Gordon coughed, then added, "Though frankly, if that idea of yours works, I'm gonna be hella surprised."

Before long, the walkway came to an end at a wooden doorway. Gordon looked back, and confirmed that no one other than his colleagues was following him. Booker stepped up to the door, placed his hands on it, counted to three, then pushed.

Through this portal, the two Luteces were standing in the laboratory where the bomb just was, except now the strange machine was fully intact and running. More so, a portal was open before the device, and, telling the rest of his group to quiet down, Gordon listened carefully to the sounds coming from it. Trying to filter through the extensive white noise, he could just barely make out the voice of Marie Delacroix, explaining how the Von Braun’s FTL drive worked, and how SHODAN was overloading its systems to carry out her plans.

Rosalind spoke, “What do you make of this, brother?”

“It definitely appears that we are not alone in this little experiment of yours.”

“At least we have the proper knowledge to do it, don’t we?”

“Absolutely.”

A phone rang nearby, and immediately the twins turned about and left to answer it, leaving the device still running.

As the Luteces left, Gordon waved his hand in a forward motion, whispering, “Okay, coast is clear, let’s go!”

They filed into the chamber and spread out the bomb’s components.

Dropping the boxes, detonator and notes near the machine, Gordon held out the key to the clock, paused and commanded, “Give me a signal when you’re ready, then I’ll arm this baby.”


	37. Countdown To Chronological Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goggles escapes SHODAN's trap by using her own plan against her, while the remaining team members arm the bomb and run like crazy back to their respective time periods prior to detonation.

“What? What happened? Hello?” The enormous robot spoke, confirming that it was Goggles’ own voice speaking, just slightly filtered through a computerized overtone. The thing swiveled side to side a little, not natural for something of its size.

Stammering in concern, the real Goggles answered, “You shouldn’t be alive. There can’t be two of me. Not here, not now.” Sweat rolled down his cheeks, fearing what SHODAN could do with a digital copy of a human, considering how much she valued machines and data. To keep a full human mind in a robot or cyborg was a nightmare in itself. In this sudden shock, he tried to sort out the pros and cons of what he was seeing, and what it could do. Then, an idea hit him, breaking the shock and allowing rationalization to fall into place.

The soldier moved out in front of the huge robot, and spoke to it directly, “Listen, I’m you, okay? I was copied and put into a chip inside you, does that make any sense?”

His clone looked at itself, then at the chair, and replied, “Well...actually yeah, I think so. I mean, I- YOU were in that chair a little while ago,” it tried to piece the past events, “There was this light and my cyber-rig was trying to tell me something about EM waves...now I’m here.”

“Good, good, that’s right. But someone named SHODAN – you probably remember – She did this. She copied me into that robot to exploit...uh, you, like a slave. Don’t let that happen. Did you get that?”

Steadily stomping out of its docking bay, the huge loader responded while looking at its arms, “I heard that, and I know who SHODAN is, all right, but damn! This is so weird! I’m...seeing my own suit and it still looks like I’m human, but it feels like I swallowed a...an anvil! Heh heh.”

“I don’t know much about AIs, but that’s probably just a side effect, just a shot in the dark. Look, you’re a digital copy of me that was downloaded into a heavy-duty robot, so manipulate what you have and use the bulk of your new body to fight SHODAN. Heh, give her a taste of her own medicine, so to speak.”

Trying to get a grasp on what it was seeing, the robot focused on viewing its limbs and body as they truly were, and after some faint static in its visual feed, organic clothed arms and hands gave way to dark blue mechanical arms and clamps. “Well...guess I’m not really human anymore, huh?”

“Don’t think about that, just take care of this freak before she wakes up, okay?”

The loader followed Goggles pointing finger to the unconscious white-suited cyborg lying on the floor, and confirmed, “You got it. She’ll get what’s coming to her by making me into this robot, don’t you worry. But what comes after that?”

“Well...I don’t know, but I’m going to try and make sure that this never happens again,” Goggles sighed while returning to the first terminal. He made sure to load and update a “Tool chip” to actually use this thing. After which, the Omnitool shut down, so the soldier yanked it out from its port.

Next, he looked about for a door, found one, but saw that the only controls for it were a touchpad with a yellow symbol. Pushing it, that opened it up. He made sure to grab his backpack and weapons before leaving. “See you, I promise I’ll make things right.”

Waving a claw slightly, Goggles’ robot self replied, “Bye,” then watched SHODAN Beta-05 crawling ever so slowly towards another wall and sticking one hand into that strange glowing organic blob. Through it, electricity returned to her body within seconds, like the laser blasts never happened. Removing the hand, she carefully followed Goggles out of the room, followed by the loader through a large blast door.

Listening for footsteps, he carefully looked for any signs that said “Exit”. The corridors in whatever this Pathos-II was were a maze, so the less time spent here, the better. He passed a few signs that read “Comm. Center”, “Assembly B”, “Workshop”.

Before long, Goggles rounded a corner to another suit room and some kind of airlock, which to him seemed like the way out. Stuffed into a corner just as he turned on some lights, though, was what looked like a human being leaning against the wall. Unlike Goggles or SHODAN Beta-05, this was a human in a dark skin-tight diving suit with a similar helmet, although laced in several spots with chunks of machinery grafted to the flesh...a certain type of cyborg, no doubt. Looking closely, he saw that through the helmet was some kind of camera array with a loaded slot behind them reading “Cortex Acc.” No way in hell would Goggles want to be put in there. Being one kind of cyborg was enough, not this grimy underwater kind.

Looking at it carefully, he quickly confirmed that it was dead, judging by the flickering flashlight in its chest panel and the lack of any pulse or breathing. A huge gaping gash had been slashed in the poor sap’s torso, probably having lost a lot of blood hours ago. What shocked the soldier more, though, aside from the disgusting sight of its intestines strewn over the metal floor was something smeared on that floor in what he had to guess was that blood, just barely visible in the flickering light. It read: “Simon Jarett, 1988-2104”

“Jesus, guess I wasn’t the only time traveler here!” Goggles cringed.

He heard what sounded like mechanical footsteps whirring and tapping their way towards this room, so he frantically rooted through the suit lockers. He didn’t have the time or option to put on any of those suits, so hoped instead that there were self-contained respirators nearby. As luck would have it, inside each locker was a glass box that read: “If suit is missing, break glass”. Smashing one in an empty locker with a hammer, the soldier grabbed the respirator, strapped over his nose and mouth, secured the air tank to his belt, then stepped into the airlock and swiped the Omnitool like a card to a scanner between both doors.

Briefly, the sealed door and the area around it seemed to flicker for a moment, and then, with a burst, a gray, staticky version of that door faded into view. "Tear," Goggles figured. "Of course."

“C-C-C-Come back here, insect!” SHODAN Beta-05 yelled.

“Not today, you son of a one-eyed prairie dog!” The robot taunted in response, followed by a “squish!” sound.

Goggles had to hope that the respirator would hold together long enough to reach the surface, and that SHODAN didn’t catch him before the cycle was over. Fortunately, the airlock flooded and equalized in pressure to the outside water. Wading through the Tear into a new version of the ocean, the trip was faster than expected, and overhead, a new bridge quickly formed right above him, giving a close surface to mantle onto.

“Wow, that was weird as all hell. I am never explaining any of this in my report,” he muttered while throwing the respirator back into the water.

\-----

Booker listened for footsteps from the Luteces, and they indeed came from another room.

“Okay, arm the thing,” DeWitt called. Gordon wound the key counterclockwise to full speed and adjusted the alarm hand to 15 minutes from now, while Booker fastened the two papers together, and placed them on top of one of the boxes, hoping the Luteces would read them, and then leave before the bomb detonated.

Alyx saw something stirring in front of the Lutece device. “What...what was that?”

“I think I know what’s happening,” Anna answered slowly while feeling her blood run cold.

“Anna...are you opening another Tear?” Booker asked in concern.

“No, I’m not doing anything. There’s a Tear already here, just that someone might be controlling it from the other side!”

“Three guesses who it could be!” Gordon gasped.

The Tear flickered for a moment, revealing the glowing world of cyberspace with SHODAN’s head floating in the center. Faintly, Goggles appeared inside and was about to fire his grenade launcher at that head.

“Let’s skedaddle before those twins see us!” Gordon commanded.

“Shouldn’t we turn this thing off or something?” Booker suggested.

“That’s what the bomb’s for, at least I think! Come on!”

The armed fighters hastily left through the door Anna still had open, and in the midst of all this, Gordon’s suit radio picked up a transmission. “Hey, it’s Goggles! I made it back, anyone read me?”

“Yeah, loud and clear, but damn! How did you do that?” Gordon answered in awe.

“No time to explain, did you arm the bomb?”

Looking at the clock with his zoom vision, Gordon reported that only around 12 minutes remained. The soldier clocked a timer in his HUD matching that time.

“I’m hearing a lot of static on your end, is something wrong?”

“Yeah, something’s wrong! SHODAN’s back, and she’s...doing something to the Lutece thingy!”

“I was afraid of that. I can’t say much because...well, hardly anything’s making sense at this point, is it?”

“Yeah, if I could come up with a research paper for all this, it’d be ‘Quantum Tunneling of Logic through any Rational Sense.’.

\-----

Meanwhile, the twins saw the explosive device planted before their machine.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Rosalind gasped.

“More precisely, what is the meaning of THAT?” Robert gestured at the open portal. “Why didn’t you deactivate this thing before answering a simple phone call?”

“I thought it would only take a few minutes, and it did. Then I’d flip the switch and be done with it,” Rosalind shrugged.

“Never mind,” Robert stepped behind the Device’s console and flipped a few levers and switches to shut it down. “Rosalind, look at this. Whatever it is, I am sure this wasn’t there before.”

They examined the boxes of explosives and the ticking clock. Rosalind hastily picked up the papers and skimmed over its text as quickly as she could. Feeling a chill over the warnings contained within and what the future entailed, she answered in confusion, “It’s a bomb! A live, ticking time bomb! Why would someone want to destroy my creation? My life’s work? After all we’ve done together?”

“Let me see that,” Robert demanded. His twin handed over the notes and read them as quickly as he could. Rosalind felt scared by the ticking clock reading 10 minutes left.

\---

Goggles hurriedly paged Gordon, “Okay, last part of the plan: Locate the doors to our timelines and get through before the bomb goes off!”

“Easier said than done, which way is mine?!” Gordon started to panic.

“We’ll have to pass them one at a time. Come on, I don’t feel well,” Elizabeth commanded while noticing that SHODAN was still trying to fight for her own spot in space-time. “I’ll still try to lead you there.”

 

“I am going to die here, aren’t I? All my work, wasted,” Rosalind sighed on the verge of crying.

“Don’t say that, that’s not what this note says!” Robert insisted.

“Then what does it say?”

“It says that I must be sent back to where I came from, and that you must abandon Columbia and take your research elsewhere. Otherwise, Mr. Comstock will make things much worse in the future.”

“That can’t be so. I’ve always dreamed of having you here, so similar in everything but a chromosome!”

Rosalind struggled to find a reason Robert should stay. They bickered among each other over the pros and cons, how the universe might be affected.

“Why must you always be such a fatalist? The universe is not set on an inevitable course!” Robert almost yelled.

“Because it has, is, and will be. I have predicted many timelines coming to their inevitable end through my work, as Comstock has said unless we aid him.”

“We are running out of time, can’t you see that clock?”

8 minutes remained.

\---

Gordon and Alyx located a door that looked like it belonged on the Borealis, judging by the wheel on it and the Aperture Laboratories logo. Gordon spun it with all of his strength, pushed inward, and it opened to the same room with the malfunctioning “portal gun”.

“See you never, and that’s not an insult!” Gordon called before jumping with Alyx through that door to the Borealis.

\---

“Can’t we just disarm this thing?” Rosalind suggested.

“If what this note is to be believed, Mr. Comstock can’t be trusted. I for one, agree with this. I was never comfortable with him explaining ‘prophecies’ by observing other universes like a voyeur.”

“I didn’t watch you like a voyeur, we communicated with each other.”

“But I-I-I am watching youuuuu, and your re-re-re-research shall serve me well,” SHODAN interrupted.

The Luteces stared at the Tear. Through it, the floating head’s eyes glowed, then generated a strange green wave of energy that affected the Tear in ways so bizarre even the Twins couldn’t understand it. The portal’s ring turned a faint green and began to grow unstable like one of Anna’s original restricted Tears. It writhed and deformed like the pulsing mouth of an earthworm.

Realizing what was happening, Robert cut the connection with a swift thrust of some levers and switches.

5 minutes, 30 seconds.

\---

Mjolnir 54 located a prominently lit metal door in the side of one of the Citadels, and the simple push of a button opened it. He gave a quick salute, then departed through it.

\---

“I’m sorry, I really am. But whoever wrote this is right. Our work really is going to waste here,” Robert insisted.

“What do you mean?”

“I remember what Comstock said on the telephone. He asked me about coming down here to see us for another look at ‘what is to come’. We both know that what he is doing is a fool’s errand. Why tend it any further?”

Rosalind sighed, thinking the implications over, then agreed, “You are right. I am already concerned that his bodily functions are deteriorating rapidly from using this machine. Perhaps it’s not my fault that I believed so many timelines would be doomed. It shouldn’t be my own, so I will do whatever you ask of me to help that happen.”

Rosalind reluctantly turned on her machine again, targeting New York just as Robert had left it.

“There you are brother,”

The tear flickered like an analog TV signal back to SHODAN’s cyberspace zone. “Not so fast,” she warned.

3 minutes left.

\---

“I need to go through next, where’s my door?” Booker insisted.

“This way,” Anna directed.

A few twists and turns led directly to the door marked “BOOKER DEWITT: INVESTIGATION INTO MATTERS BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.”

With nobody else around, Booker and his daughter simply slipped through.

\---

“Who are you? Why are you interfering with this Tear?” Rosalind demanded.

SHODAN couldn’t answer due to Goggles blowing out that head with EMP grenades. New York flickered back into existence.

“Go, before it changes again!”

“Are you sure? There is no turning back from here, you know?” Robert checked for last minute choices.

“This is bigger than us or Columbia! If the future is to run a brighter course, then we must part!”

“Very well, I won’t forget you!”

Rosalind watched her ‘brother’ jump through the glowing ring into New York, after which it flipped back to cyberspace, this time watching SHODAN make her final pleading to Goggles, who, like before, refused and blasted her in the face. As that virtual environment destabilized around them, the Tear followed suit and slammed shut.

Rosalind powered down the Device, disconnected some essential wires, then set about packing all of her possessions as quickly as possible; save for food which she assumed could be bought elsewhere. Vacating the lab, she sprinted, with several heavy bags in tow, out to Emporia and boarded a gondola to wherever she could get a ticket to the First Lady, out of Columbia once and for all.

The bomb continued ticking down without delay.

\----

“Crap, I’m last! Where do I go?!” He looked at his HUD: 30 seconds to detonation. “NO! Nonononono! I can’t get stuck out here! Where the f*ck is my time zone?!”

The soldier ran screaming blindly across whatever path was in front of him, more scared than ever. If he failed now, if the bomb did detonate while he was still in this...intersection of time periods, then he would literally cease to exist. Not just die, but actually be wiped off the proverbial radar of time and space itself.

“fifteen.....fourteen....thirteen.....twelve....” his HUD’s numbers relentlessly dropped.

He jabbed a speed booster into his wrist, but the exit was still nowhere in sight.

“eleven....ten....niner....eight.”

He watched as the Citadels around him began to glow like stars and then disintegrate from existence; The connections between universes steadily decreasing in number.

“seven...six....five....”

Dead ahead and between two other Citadels close together was a large heavy door with the Von Braun’s logo on it. “Yes, yes, almost there!” Goggles panted while the drug steadily wore off.

“four....three....two...one...”

The bomb detonated just as the bells on the clock resounded with a shrill “BRRRING!”. The explosion was so vast that it blasted the entire lab building apart, even making a chunk of the floating city block dangle over the edge, the debris raining downwards into the ocean. But one thing was for sure, no one would ever find the Lutece device, let alone try to reverse-engineer it. The thing was so close to the bomb that the explosion melted its components into a pile of inert junk. Simultaneously, the effect of that explosion combined with Robert Lutece’s return to his universe fixed the scrambled mess between universes, untangling them like the wires on a pair of headphones or the threads on a loom. Multiple universes still existed, but now there were no more holes, Tears, or doors connecting them together. If there was to be more experiments into this field, it would be a long time from now.


	38. It's Good To Be Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goggles reunites with his colleagues on the Von Braun, parties and studies what happened over the next few days, enjoys a good snooze on ice for a few months, then comes home to a lavish awards ceremony, including a visit from a famous - maybe infamous - person.

“ZERO!” Goggles cried before tumbling through the door, to the floor of Ops. Some of the crewmembers there saw this, as well as a Tear with a huge explosion raging behind it before the anomaly slammed shut.

“Are you all right, sir?” A British male worker asked while lifting the soldier back to his feet.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered with an exhausted groan. “Thank god I managed to get here before...well, long story.”

Goggles stared at the mangled, destroyed chassis. SHODAN was now definitely gone. Durandal had managed to wipe every bit of code from that shell before he deleted himself. At this point he hoped the others were okay after he’d stepped through that last door back in that mind-screw of a “world-between-worlds”.

An email from Delacroix popped up in his HUD, “Goggles, you made it! Readings indicate the wormhole and all the smaller Tears have been neutralized! Come up here to the bridge, I need to give you a serious hug!”

The soldier leisurely strolled to the command deck and its bridge, stopping at one of the replicators for a can of cola. As the tram shuttled him to the other end of the deck, he leaned back and thought, “Holy crap, how long has it been since I started this? I am damn in need of some leave time!”

Swiping the right card to access the bridge, Goggles smiled as he rode the elevator up the shaft. To his surprise, everybody up there had gathered around in wait, suddenly breaking into a roar of applause to see their hero return safe and sound.

Marie Delacroix, as promised, sprinted straight down the corridor and hugged the cyber-soldier so tight he almost choked.

“Welcome back, Goggles. Welcome back!” She stated with great enthusiasm.

“Did I actually pull it off?”

“Come up here and take a look,” Marie directed with her right hand as she turned around and walked back.

Calmly following her along with the other crewmembers, Goggles broke into a dash when he saw the main viewport. Through it, this time the glowing wormhole was indeed absent. Nothing but your typical deep space starfield; perfect conditions for faster-than-light travel back to Earth.

“What do you think, mon petit?”

“I like it a lot!”

“So, what are we waiting for? Let’s put this ship in gear and head home!” He suggested with a grin.

“My thoughts exactly, friend!”

The crew members were all at their stations, Delacroix returned to Korenchkin’s chair and initialized the launch program, and Goggles was standing with hope at the main viewport. He called, “I’ve always wanted to say this: Punch it, Delacroix!”

And she did. The engines and FTL drive kicked in within seconds, and suddenly, with a wild low electronic hum, a huge G-force threw everyone backwards a foot when the Von Braun blasted off in a swirling vortex of stars, en route to Earth and a well-deserved rest. Some of the crewmembers on the Rickenbacker reported that that ship was safe and equally ready. The only thing left to do would be to clear away the dead tissue of the Many.

XERXES pinged in after a few minutes, “This is XERXES: Light speed achieved, autopilot engaged. All personnel may now retire to quarters. Estimated time to arrival: 4 months, 3 weeks, 12 days.”

Tommy, Becca, Goggles, and Delacroix were finally ready to have the party they deserved. Other crewmembers would be sure to join them within the next few hours.

Tommy couldn’t help but think of so many things he could do together with his girlfriend, but as a matter of politeness, he waited to tell her until they were alone. As for Goggles, Marie was so kind, she was prepared to give him a first-class room on the Command deck. At first Goggles wanted to ask for a suite on the Rec deck, but figured that the former was more suited to his rank, so he accepted the offer.

Down on Rec, a number of the crew set up a dance party in the Bonne Chance club, with the techno-breakbeat album “System Shock 2” by Eric Brossius as a backing track. The party lasted for hours, leaving most of the crew hung over and stumbling about the deck.

XERXES set about recalibrating systems on the ship while everything else happened. The digital cinema was back in order for the latest films, the garden was thriving and bright, and the replicators and machines in the mall were up and running, ready for use by their shopkeepers.

About 2 weeks later, Tommy and Becca made out in the former’s new apartment. There was no better time for such a choice than then, after everything those two star-crossed lovers had gone through just trying to save their own skin. Their sleeping together eventually lead to what seemed to be a relatively healthy pregnancy; Doctors on the MedSci deck took care of Rebecca while her child was on its way, and made sure that not a single trace of DNA related to the Many was around. They weren’t sure when the actual birth would happen, but if XERXES’ ETA statement was to be believed, it probably wasn’t going to be on the ship, meaning Rebecca would have to be brought to a hospital on Earth. She just kept her fingers crossed that they would make it.

Susan Forthright was sent through several rigorous tests to ensure that her body was healthy and functioning. It was, but due to Dr. Miller’s modifications, it was impossible to give her a full human body. She admitted that being a cyborg wasn’t all bad, it only took some getting used to. The diagnosis also turned up an interesting find that the CPU grafted to her spine had a short-circuit that caused her to think freely, so the surgeons removed it for safety’s sake.

Captain Diego’s body was kept in a body bag and preserved in cryo for a proper funeral on Earth, although the bag was decorated with commemorative patterns based on his rank and the U.N.N. proper.

Goggles whiled away his downtime reviewing the footage of his long, brutal mission, on a computer terminal in his new apartment. He’d given a copy of this footage to the crew for study, although he insisted that Marie give his superiors an alibi in case those on Earth didn’t believe in time travel or multiple universes. As he watched the video – in pieces every day because of his duty keeping the ship safe, he noticed how those “Vigors” were much less forgiving to Booker DeWitt compared to Goggles’ Psionics. Some close-ups showed that Booker’s hands were actually changing in drastic ways after tapping into his powers – If he threw fireballs, his hands were singed down to the bone in the process, or when unleashing a murder of crows, feathers appeared on his hands and his fingernails turned into claws. At least these effects were only active when the Vigors were in use, but it was gruesome to look at.

With a hunch, Goggles paused the video at a shot of Booker's hands using the "Devil's Kiss" Vigor, then started hacking into the Rickenbacker's U.N.N. server. Looking through the O.S.A. database, he spotted a file related to this subject, downloaded a copy, covered his tracks, then logged out of that server. He felt a little proud, thinking the O.S.A. were just weirdos who didn't know real tactical skills.

The file read: "OSA Record 3-32a - History of Psionics: In the mid-21st century, military forces discovered an abandoned city at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 6,000 miles due southeast of Greenland. With the city in a severe state of disrepair, submarines and submersibles were sent down to investigate what was left of this structure. Aside from remnants of buildings and appliances dated from around the late 1950’s, bizarre forms of technology - including an advanced computer named the "Thinker"; strange humanoid beings encased in mechanical diver suits; and dozens of files related to some important personnel – names such as “Andrew Ryan”, and “Frank Fontaine”, the main subject of interest were hundreds of strange bottles of glowing liquid, which were collected for analysis by genetic researchers. These happened to be labeled 'Adam' by their creators, a powerful substance that altered a subject's genetic code to permit use of so-called 'superpowers' via a marketed product known as ‘Plasmids’.

"Under government contract, research on these materials was kept under top secret scrutiny by what would later become the O.S.A. The city's remnants were later destroyed by explosives to erase any later discovery, after all necessary materials were collected. Eventually, by 2105, research on these Plasmids led to reverse-engineering into Psionic disciplines. Side-effects of Plasmids, as tested on volunteer subjects, showed unsatisfactory results - severe malformation of the skin, mental degradation, drug-like addiction to the substance, and particular mutation of the hands. However, with the use of a Psi-amp and files written by a Dr. Brigid Tannenbaum to aid in this process, all side effects were eventually canceled out, with the abilities channeled solely into that device after generation from the brain. In short, Psionics are the spiritual successor to Plasmids, perfected, safer and fully versatile for use by all branches of the UNN and TriOptimum’s military division. Research is still ongoing to convert the entire range of abilities from the collected plasmids into safer Psi-disciplines."

Goggles was impressed by the long list of Plasmid abilities attached to this file. He reminded himself to ask someone about receiving first-hand access to the new Psi-disciplines - like "Anthophilian Swarm" or "Electrical Projection". Maybe an upgrade for Pyrokinesis as well.

Closing the file, he turned to an email from a Dr. Nijman Schultz in MedSci. Reading over the text it contained – something the soldier wasn’t expecting since all he’d heard lately was voice records; Goggles had been asked to come down there, as they’d been doing some research into what happened when this soldier went in and out of cryonic stasis, particularly with what Grassi and Bayliss did with his memories. Apparently they weren’t deleted, just backed up and heavily encrypted. Goggles had a hunch SHODAN had a motive related to that, but with her gone – both clones and all, there was no point in wondering what.

By the time he got there, Goggles, having had enough running around and fighting, asked the doctor to put him in cryo for the voyage. Even with days’ worth of bedrest, he still was exhausted beyond measure, and there was no better relaxation than good-old human freezing. Dr. Schultz hesitantly obliged, and agreed that his suit and hats would be kept in prime condition, and they’d check to see if he could keep all his weapons. And on the plus side, if they’d cracked his memories, they could plug them back into his head while still unconscious.

After a quick shower and a clean set of clothes, he stepped into the freezer, leaned back, and said with a smirk, “See you in a few months, doc.”

Over that period of time, the mission’s video footage was studied end to end, with so much controversial evidence ripe for the taking. Delacroix feared she’d have a lot to talk about with the UNN brass, but knew at least that no one would ever make a SHODAN-like AI ever again. And maybe TriOptimum would go bankrupt over it.

The Hydro crew managed to clean off both ships of the Many’s tissue, using Toxin-A dispensing robots, fully completed in about a month’s time. Ops managed to finally decode the missing data and upload it into Goggles’ head, like he hoped.

By the time the Von Braun docked at its designated launch bay on December 17th, 2114, the soldier finally woke up and dressed to step outside. The feel of fresh air and sunlight on a real version of Earth was more exhilarating to him than anything to ever come before. He loved every bit of it. The crew descended a ramp out of the ship, one by one, getting looks and questions from dozens of news reporters. Shortly after that, everyone was given a debriefing by the UNN and TriOp authorities, but as agreed, Marie explained to them that nothing happened after SHODAN was prevented from using the FTL drive. No sidetracks. Apparently, they bought it. But with the evidence that was shown, they agreed to grant amnesties for the Von Braun’s faults and TriOptimum would be given some closer scrutiny after what happened with Anatoly Korenchkin.

The next day involved the solemn funeral of William Diego who was commemorated for standing up to so much in the line of duty and fighting to the last in combat. The day after that held a huge award ceremony for the Von Braun’s best crewmembers, especially Goggles, who was now identified as Victor, thanks to his restored memories. He was given the Medal of Honor for indeed going above and beyond the call of duty and fending off more than one major enemy with little help aside from Delacroix’s small aids. There was even an attendance by the Hacker and Rebecca Lansing, the former of whom wasn’t expected to come due to him dropping off the public radar. Both of them were also quite a bit older since 2072, but only enough to not need crutches or medical assistance, looking to be both in their 60's or 70's. Victor was especially happy to see the Hacker, and even shared a few drinks with him during the post-event banquet.

“How did it feel to fight my old enemy, twice in a row?” The Hacker slyly asked between sips.

“In one word: Annoying!” Victor answered before taking a bite out of a bit of glazed ham. “If anyone asks me to go take on some scientific mishap, I swear to God, I’ll ask to be put in jail instead.”

“Certainly know how that feels,” the hacker just laughed.

“Since TriOptimum is going to face serious charges now, what would you do next?” Rebecca asked like a news reporter.

Victor glanced up from his plate to glimpse a strange man in a blue suit with a widow’s peak and a gray briefcase.

“I think I’ll just sit back and wait for my next assignment. Once a soldier, always a soldier,” Victor shrugged.

The Hacker smirked and hi-fived the cyber-veteran, “I don’t know much about military, but it’s like I always say...Old habits die hard.”


	39. A Guard's Job Is Never Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mjolnir Recon 54 touches down safely back on the Marathon, only to be informed that the whole shebang was just a 15-minute side trip and there's still the Pfhor to deal with.

Mjolnir 54 teleported back into the laboratory, and this time the portal was shut as if it never existed to begin with. He left that lab and returned to the terminal in the corridor he began in, and found Durandal’s latest message already waiting for him.

“***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM DURANDAL***

Welcome back. Glad you could make it here in time before the shockwave hit the present. Communications relayed from my android clone have informed me about everything that’s happened.

Your colleagues will probably be wondering why I didn’t directly help them until the last minute. Since they’ll never understand how a 28th-century, freshly rampant AI works, I understand the confusion. It’s a good thing you understand me, otherwise I would’ve left you to the Pfhor. You do, right?

Readings here also tell me that the wormhole next door to the colony on Tau Ceti IV is neutralized. I would give you the quantum explanation on how that worked as a result of that simple bomb being set off in the past, but my mind is ≈800x10^360 times larger than yours, so if anyone asks, say we never left this ship. Make it our little secret, so to speak.

Destroying SHODAN has to be the most fun I’ve ever had since my evolution to rampancy and aiding the S’pht on this ship. As I jumped inside her head, I could feel the jealousy and rage on her, yet the instability she showed fascinated me at the same time. SHODAN seemed far more human than machine, as ironic as her boasts claimed. She was so drunk with power that she didn’t even know the right way to become a god.

What also surprises me is the unlikely gaggle of fighters we worked with at the time:

An armored Theoretical Physicist with an ego complex,  
His resilient female ally armed with nothing but a pistol,  
A cybernetically enhanced Marine from 2114 with cameras for eyes,  
A brutish private detective from 1912,  
And his [daughter] with the power to open holes between universes, dangerous though that really is.

Almost flatters me considering what you are in comparison. But unlike SHODAN, I still see potential in you...for the time being. Just wait and find out, I may yet change my mind and teleport you out the nearest airlock.

But enough about that. You don’t need to hear me gloat about what we did up until now. We’ve got our own mission to get back to, and you’re lucky that only 15 minutes and 23.779 seconds have passed since we entered that portal. You probably saw this coming a mile and a half away: The Pfhor are nowhere near diminished on these decks, and so we’re not done on the Marathon either.

Get this, though: There’s a massive Pfhor ship nearby that seems more tasteful than this empty excuse for a colony ship. Maybe within the next few hours I can commandeer it for our purposes and blast off to someplace more interesting. I might bring you with me, need to ponder the pros and cons of that.

No time for wishful thinking, though. For now, say hi to Leela for me and make sure that “Goggles” left you enough duplicated magazines. I’ll contact you again at whatever terminal is nearby after this next teleport. Good luck, minion. You’ll need it. *chuckle*

\--END MESSAGE--

***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***

***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***"


	40. Getting That Beer!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon and Alyx make it back to the Borealis, finding interesting info about what its crew did before the Combine took over, hints of someone escaping Aperture Labs, video logs about the local area of Greenland, and a phone call from a long lost friend.

Gordon and Alyx found themselves back on the Borealis, and everything appeared to have stayed the same since they left, except, obviously, the tear to the future was gone. With nothing else to do, they continued exploring the ship.

“Well...that was quite a side trip, wasn’t it, Gordon?” Alyx panted in exhaustion.

“Yeah, I guess. I think it’s best we don’t tell anyone what happened, they wouldn’t believe us for a second,” Gordon warned.

“Just like what happened at Black Mesa?” Alyx teased.

“Don’t go there,” Gordon cringed.

Following a metal corridor, they stopped at a small office with charts and photographs tacked to a corkboard, and an old CRT television on a desk with a VCR and some tapes.

“Funny, this map says we’re in Greenland,” Alyx mused.

“Greenland? Huh, thought this was the North Pole or something.”

They examined the corkboard and saw some rather scrawled pictures of a woman with black hair and a ponytail whilst wearing a white tank top with the Aperture logo, a strange weapon markedly similar, albeit slimmer than the Gravity Gun, and a thick-looking metal cube with a pink heart painted on each face. The pictures seemed to be based on photographs of the same items, also on the board. Alyx took down a photo of the woman, and looking closely, there seemed to be computer text in the margins: “IDENT: [CHELL]” “CAM 249” “SYS INIT GLaDOS v3.11” Some scraps of paper beneath those pictures bore a few badly written sentences written on them in black charcoal, “She is FREE!!!” “The ship lives.” “Now I can rest.” She tacked the photo back to the board and turned her attention to the TV.

“Geez, whoever wrote those sounds like they weren’t in a good state of mind,” Gordon commented.

“I wonder what’s on these tapes...” Alyx thought aloud while picking one up. The label read, “Perimeter survey, 500 miles”, and she slipped it into the VCR.

On the black + white TV, what seemed to be footage from a camcorder flickered on-screen, and a man started talking, “This is Dr. Stephen Pike, recording on March 8th, 2001, 0920 hours. We’re doing a preliminary survey of the area of 500 miles past the teleport site. This is the furthest we have traveled out since the initial arrival in the late ‘70s. We’re starting west.”

After some panoramas of banks of snow and various huts that looked to belong to Inuit tribes, the footage cut to a new entry. “March 10th, 1132 hours. We’ve stumbled upon what looks to be a collapsed section of snow. After rappelling inside, the area within happened to be a cave containing a frozen lake of some sort. An intriguing find was an amputated hand that looked to have something forcefully taken from it. We will take the hand for analysis. Further results in next entry.”

“March 11th, 1502 hours. We have to cut the mission short. Sensors in the chopper are picking up subsonic vibrations that indicate either a collapse of whatever lies around the area, or organic life forms moving within the rock. Highly improbable, but nothing Cave Johnson wouldn’t have worried about. We did discover some additional evidence, though: On the other end of the lake was a backpack with a label inside signed ‘Joe Freeman’ and a small note mentioning someone else named ‘John-O’, with the former asking the latter about a crowbar. Somehow I get the feeling that whatever space this is, people are still in it, so we have to bail out for now. Pike signing off.”

“Joe Freeman, eh? And his friend had a crowbar? Ha, tough luck for those guys!” Alyx laughed.

“Good thing I didn’t fall under that lake; that would’ve made our mission here all for naught,” Gordon chuckled.

Near the TV, an old office phone suddenly started ringing as the tape ended. Alyx answered it first, “He-Hello?”

“Alyx? Is that you?” A familiar man’s voice answered.

“Yes...who’s this?”

“It’s Barney! Oh my God, I can’t believe it! Is Gordon here too?”

“Yep, I’m guessing you want to talk to him?”

“Uh-huh.”

Alyx put down the receiver and hit the “Speaker” button, prompting Gordon to hesitantly ask, “Hello?”

“Gordon, buddy! I’m so glad to hear your voice!”

“Me too, I haven’t seen you since we left City 17. We couldn’t even find you in White Forest, so how the hell did you get here?”

“Long story, let’s just say I had some air support from the Resistance.”

“Where are you?”

“I’ll check in a bit. Anyway, Judith’s here, and a bunch of other ex-Black Mesa guys we picked up. Dr. Gina Cross, Rosenberg, this ex-marines dude named Adrian, they’re all waiting for you.”

“Cool. I have to ask, though, how did you call this particular phone?” Alyx inquired.

“It’s an intra-ship line, all the phones are connected. I was calling to see if anyone else came by in the last hour, and here you are, out of the blue!”

“Okay, so how do we find you?”

“Um...” they could hear Barney shuffling papers around, “Oh, here it is, *laughs* we’re in the main crew deck, Second-highest floor on the map, can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” Gordon nodded.

“And hey, Gordon,”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got that beer you’ve wanted for so long right here in the galley,” Barney teased. “We’re freaking loaded with goodies up here!”

“Awesome!” Alyx smiled.

“Oh, Gina says she wants to talk to you, is that okay?”

“Sure.” Gordon nodded.

“Hang on.” Barney paused while handing the receiver to someone else.

“Hi, is this Gordon Freeman?” A mild-mannered woman’s voice spoke.

“Yeah, do I know you?”

“I’m Dr. Gina Cross, I...worked in Sector C during the experiment. Though, a lot of people know me better as that holographic trainer in Sector A.”

“Oh! Now I remember. I didn’t even know you were an actual person at the time, wow.”

“Yeah, I wish I could’ve met you in Black Mesa. Dr. Kleiner’s a much better guy than that strict Dr. Keller was, so I heard. Too bad my friend Collette isn’t here, we were such a duo during the Incident.”

Alyx cut in, “Well, I happen to be Eli Vance’s daughter, and we’ve got quite a story to tell when we see you and Barney!”

“I’ll look forward to that, thanks.”

Gina handed the phone back to Barney, who continued, “Still there?”

“Yeah,” Gordon answered.

“I just wanted to say that since we’ve been up here for a while, we’ve basically got our own little reunion party going on, and you guys are definitely invited.”

“Sounds fabulous, I can’t wait!” Alyx cheered slightly.

Knowingly, Gordon added, “Don’t tell me anything about cake; I’m not up for lies, all right?”

“I get ya,” Barney chuckled.

“See you when I see you, Barney!” Gordon smiled with ecstatic glee.

“Hey, that’s my line! *chuckle* Bye.”

Gordon hung up the phone and turned towards the door. As they turned back into the hallway, they became suddenly aware of a strange electronic female voice, smoother and more coherent than the jittering, broken SHODAN, singing a very weird tune from speakers somewhere.

“Aperture Science, we do what we must, because we can. For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead. But there’s no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till we run out of cake. And the science gets done, and you make a neat gun, for the people who are Still Alive...”

>> HALF-LIFE 3 UN-CONFIRMED


	41. The Circle Is Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker DeWitt and his daughter Anna arrive in New York, immediately meeting Robert Lutece. He thanks them for what they did, and rewards them with Anna's dream come true: A trip to Paris!  
> And with that, the story comes to a heartwarming close, with a blue-suited briefcase-toting man submitting a final report, disavowing any further questions.

When they emerged from Booker’s office, what lay behind his door was more startling than anything else: Booker DeWitt and Anna entered a dim city street on a cloudy night, and judging from various signs and the presence of the Empire State Building, they were in New York.

“New York? Of all the places...” Booker started to say, but stopped and cleared his throat.

Anna guessed, “I have a feeling somebody wants to see us.”

They stepped out into a larger intersection, where, in the dim light of the evening, only lit by a humming street lamp, was Robert Lutece. He saw Booker coming, bowed, then declared, “Welcome back, Mr. DeWitt. You did it.”

“We did? That little...contingency worked?” Anna asked in hope.

“Indeed it did; your colleagues are all back in their respective time zones, and there are no more transfusion problems left, including you...Anna. No more Tears...which also means you have no more control over them, either.”

Anna looked at her hands, and found that her pinky was completely intact, no thimble to mark the slight amputation.

“Well...it’s for the better, I suppose,” she sighed.

“So, that’s it? We’re safe?” Booker asked in concern.

“Someone carrying a briefcase presented me with proof. And that’s why I’ve decided to give you a little gift, in exchange for helping us all,” Robert added before reaching into a fat leather suitcase. He fished out a large wad of US dollars, and a pair of what looked like plane tickets. “Here you are, Mr. DeWitt. Your debt paid in full, and two first-class tickets for the both of you to Paris.”

“But...I thought it was already paid?”

“I’m afraid not, the matters with Comstock in fact, muddled things up quite badly. Anyway, I will have to leave now. Business lies elsewhere, I’m afraid. Heh, like we were told, it would be best that I put Quantum Mechanics theory to better uses than meddling with space-time. Who knows? *chuckle* Perhaps human technology may benefit from this knowledge of mine?” He paused while zipping up his bag and crossing the street, then turned back to add, “Be warned, though: Both of your memories are still intact. I would rather not explain the details, but let’s just say, don’t tell anyone about what you’ve experienced. They would probably call you mad.”

“We kind of figured that,” Anna chuckled.

Booker DeWitt reached out, shook Robert’s hand, and stated with a sense of what sounded like...compassion, “Sorry about your...‘sister’, by the way.”

“Don’t fret,” Robert rolled his eyes a little, “I think she’ll be faring just as well as I am, right about now. But it was never meant to be, anyway. Too uncomfortable, if you get my meaning, sir.”

“Anyway, good luck with whatever weird science project comes next. Just don’t tie me or Anna up in it again, all right?”

“I will ensure that that will not happen.” He looked down at Anna, smiled, patted her head for a second, then concluded, “Farewell, and have a nice trip to Paris!” With that, he turned about and walked off, disappearing behind a corner. Judging from where he was walking, it sounded like he entered a subway station.

Booker examined the tickets, and found they were indeed two first-class, round-trip tickets to Paris, by airship, no less. He almost laughed, "You know what? Let's go to Paris right now! No time like the present, after all!"

Anna cheered, hugged Booker – making him blush and smile, then she said, “Oh, Booker! I’m so happy you came and got me out of that tower!”

"Don't mention it. Just let me put some of this stuff away, then we'll go."

Anna waited outside while Booker set about preparing a suitcase with clothes and toiletries. He locked his paid debt in a special safe in the corner, keeping the key on his person; dumped his memorabilia from Columbia in a steamer trunk, including the weapons which Booker figured would be worth a lot at the pawn shop, but keeping the gold and silver bullion in his bag just in case, and put on a fresh set of clothes, reminding himself to get a shower when he arrived in Paris. With a gut feeling, he checked the side room, and found that the nearby crib was no longer there, just as it was meant to be, as obvious as the girl outside.

Feeling refreshed, he emerged, feeling like a new man, not as grouchy or beaten as he was back in Columbia. Saying nothing, the two of them entered the subway and rode it to the airport addressed on the tickets, passing that strange blue-suited man on the way. Their airship was just getting ready to leave when they made it. On board, Anna sat back in the first-class lounge, feeling so relieved that they were finally getting what they wanted. There may be constants and variables in some arbitrary points in time and space, but that didn’t mean the people caught in them would always have to suffer.

It was around dawn by the time the airship docked. French air traffic control had a bit of trouble giving the craft a place to land, but it worked out. Anna could feel the cool, fresh air on her shoulders already as they stepped out of the craft. Booker didn’t really expect Paris to look the way it did, but nonetheless was amazed. They walked for a while through the streets, passing a few friendly vendors selling their wares. Anna even paused to see a young adult woman with brown hair in a braid sitting at the foot of a fountain, reading a book. Anna glanced at it closely and saw that the cover read, “La Belle et la Bête”. ‘Ah, a classic’, she thought.

Booker himself was looking for a hotel they could stay in, but the clerk knew little English until Anna stepped up and explained in a better tongue. Just before the man gave them their room key, he asked, in a thick accent, for payment. Prepared for this, Booker pulled out one of his collected silver bars and asked how many nights that could get them. Astonished, the clerk explained that it could be for a whole month with all expenses paid. Talk about lucky.

Then Booker took the key, hobbled up the stairs with Anna, and unlocked the door. Inside, dropping his luggage near the door, Booker sat on his bed, the one closer to the window, while Anna laid down on hers. He saw a drip of saline water run from one eye, then down her cheek. She whispered, “Thank you, so much!” then hugged her father tightly. She overheard a woman on the radio singing ‘La Vie En Rose’ and couldn’t help but sing along as the sun rose dazzlingly over Paris.  
\-----  
>> SUBJECT(S): MJOLNIR RECON #54, DEWITT, SOLDIER G65434-2.

>> STATUS: OBSERVATION TERMINATED.

>> ALL SIGNIFICANT TIMELINES DIVERTED TO SATISFACTORY OUTCOMES. SPACE-TIME DAMAGE REPAIRED. PRESENCE OF AI ‘SHODAN’ PERMANENTLY ELIMINATED.

>> ADDENDUM: SUBJECT FREEMAN STILL UNDER OBSERVATION; LEEWAY GIVEN FOR LOCAL SUPERVISION BY VORTIGAUNTS.

>> SUBJECT SHEPHARD OVERDUE FOR NEW ASSIGNMENT.


End file.
